The Royal Palace of Capodimonte is placed out of the city center of Naples and inside this building there is an important paintings collection and the Royal Apartment.

History of the museum

In the 18th century the kings of Naples, the Bourbons, used to come to the woods of Capodimonte to go hunting. Later Charles, the king of Naples, decided to build a museum to put inside it the artistic collection of his mother. In fact Elizabeth, the Charles mother, was the owner of the huge Farnese Collection. She was the last descendent of the Farnese family.

They spent one century to build completely the Royal Palace of Capodimonte. In fact the works began in 1738 and ended in 1838.

The first collection to be carried here was the Farnese Collection. Later a lot paintings were taken from the most famous churches of Naples. Finally, in the 20th century, a lot of modern paintings of Neapolitan artists were carried here too. These Neapolitan paintings were taken from the Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Nowadays the museum is divided in different floors and sections.

First of all you enter in the huge and beautiful gardens of Capodimonte. The Royal Palace of Capodimonte is placed in the middle of these gardens.

First floor

On the first floor, when you enter, you immediately see the best portraits of the Farnese family made by Tiziano and Raffaello. Passing through the different rooms you will see masterpieces of painters of different parts of Italy. There is an imitation of the Last Judgment of Michelangelo too. There are other paintings made by Tiziano, Parmigianino, Van Brueghel and a lot of other artists.

After this section we’ll visit the Royal Apartment. Here we’ll see a lot of portraits of the kings of Naples. We’ll see their elegant furniture till the porcelain collection. In fact there are in some rooms some objects made of porcelain. These objects were property of the Royal family. There is even a room completely made of porcelain which Charles gave as gift to his wife. After looking at the statue of Letizia Bonaparte, the mother of Napoleon, made by Canova, we’ll go to the second floor.

Second floor

On the second floor, after the gallery of the middle age painters, we’ll be in front of the masterpiece of Caravaggio. In fact “ The torture of Christ “ of Caravaggio is a real masterpiece.  The games of lights, the pain of Christ and the cruelty of the torturers make this painting full of pathos.

Going ahead we reach the gallery of the modern Neapolitan painters. The 17th and the 18th centuries represent the golden age of the Neapolitan painting. Some of the best painters were Luca Giordano, Battistello Caracciolo, Massimo Stanzione, Francesco Solimena. The Royal Palace of Capodimonte is full of paintings of these artists. This gallery is really important to figure out the local tradition.

On the last floor there are some paintings of contemporary artists like the very famous representation of the Vesuvio made by Andy Warhol.

If you want you can have a walk around the gardens too.

Anyway, if you want to see some of the best middle age and modern paintings, you have to come to this museum!