Trifter

The ancient Neapolis experienced many vicissitudes in the course of history, and having belonged to the Anjou, the Neapolitan city became the property of the Crown of Spain, who installed a viceroy, before 1738 the capital of an autonomous kingdom, the Two Sicilies, whose crown was surrounded by a Bourbon of Spain.

The grandees of Spain could not satisfy the mediaeval Castel Nuovo, and the viceroys made then build a palace more up to date, later royal, the Palazzo Reale is one of the most impressive monuments of Naples by its size, and is also part of the entire historic center Neapolitan World Heritage site by Unesco in 1995.

The building is immense.

The viceroys and kings had to show their rank in the stone, and the royal palace spreads its long facade of alternating red gray pilasters on decametres whole palace is not very high but very wide at quadrilateral which forms the heart of wings added service.
The palace turned back at New Castle of Anjou and the Old City, it has a side gallery Umberto I much later (1890) and faces the vast square of the Plebiscite (1816), whose classic decor provided by Church St. Francis de Paul and its colonnade certainly suited to the final parade of a monarchy which had disappearing Italian unification in 1860.
The facade of this side of this elsewhere in these niches a series of statues of the nineteenth century showing the most prominent rulers of the city, Roger the Norman Victor Emmanuel through Joachim Murat, the statues are huge and a little naive , testimony of the historicizing style then in vogue was after all the time when a JAD Ingres painted King Henry IV playing with his children while Paul Hippolyte Delaroche is a specialty was scenes of yesteryear.

The set has the look, but is a bit austere, austerity reinforced by the absence of visible too facelift ten in this city a little too dirty, the Neapolitan heritage is not maintained as carefully as that of northern Italy …

The entrance is on the side.

The grid that encircles the building is not open, the two small booths a bit ridiculous are visibly used long ago and is almost in a corner on the side instead of the Trentino Alto Adige and that the can enter the building.

It is also possible to simply enter the park, open access, a place to picnic obviously very popular, it must be said that this is one of the few green spaces and almost calm in this busy city but obviously it is better to visit the palace itself, and to return it but the portico to the main entrance closed, thereby achieving the ticket.

Then it starts again, but from inside the palace to the place where we come from, and can begin the tour after a detour with the need escapes me a bit, the spatial organization the visit is a little confusing!

The staircase is monumental.

The nature of this palatial building is dramatically affirmed from this huge staircase, occupying the entire height of the building and a good part of a wing, the bottom is decorated with marble and various trophies of Carrara marble, the top of gray and white stucco and allegorical bas-reliefs, all in an eyeful, it throws, there’s no denying.
One room upstairs is also equally impressive, a private theater of hundreds of places that there was no indication he was able to entertain the court and its guests, while the King watched from her box Central under a huge canopy of gilded wood, to show that it gave.
It then passes the state apartments.

The throne room is the center, still decorated with portraits of the Bourbons, but the most spectacular is the next room Ambassadors, whose ceiling back in 1620 depicts the lively and colorful frescoes the Spanish conquest, while the walls’ s decorate with beautiful tapestries.

The lobby and room service are only slightly less spectacular, some have also kept the ceiling frescoes of the seventeenth century, and all parts are separated by doors splendid scenery of the foliage and animals on a golden background.

It is superb, simply, and the disappearance of the Neapolitan monarchy has meant that the palace remains “in its own juice,” the same or nearly so since the departure of the previous occupants, there are plenty more than the clatter of boots or the rustling of dresses as we journey into the past.

The apartments occupy sovereign wing next.

The decor is a little simpler, everything being relative, however, stuccoed ceilings of gold in 1759 was not exactly those of HLM, the furniture is mostly made up of neo-Baroque pieces produced in the nineteenth century, but it is here and there of beautiful objects.
Fans of the Emperor will be moved by the great office of his brother Joachim Murat, King of Naples when, or by a fine French clock from 1840, pointing at the return of the ashes of the Emperor at the Invalides date of his death (May 5, 1821) and his tomb at Longwood.
One can also notice the beautiful tray tables with marble inlays, a Neapolitan production with its naive view of the bay of Naples a little schematic, a splendid Tuscan table shells with trompe-l’oeil, a tour force when one considers that this stunning representation is made by a mosaic of marbles selected for their colors, the art of pietradura was a specialty of Florence, and we see well with this table at what level of perfection he had developed.
The music box of the eighteenth century is more musicological curiosity, Handel himself had composed for this instrument avant-garde, while the garden-aviary offered by a czar is a little strange, kind of bulky good gift, which is especially by péterbourgeoises porcelain plates embedded in its tray.

The tables are quite arbitrary, the finest collections of Naples was transferred to the Museum of Capodimonte, and it remains in the palace that all comers, landscape or portrait series, just point it does a beautiful Gerard Honthorst A Caravaggio painting of the Netherlands rather remarkable, lighting and power cut.

The service rooms are more ordinary.

The ballroom certainly impressed by its vastness, but it is not decorated with tapestries rather than past and a Sevres vase certainly superb, the guard room is now devolved to the exposure of some models of the palace.

Other parts align tables very forgettable, or curiosities, like a desk that belonged to the grandfather of the painter Edgar Degas, the most original of these curiosities is a rotating lectern to read several books at once, built for a queen amateur zapping literary subject is strange, like a machine escaped from a Jules Verne novel or a comic Schuyten!
The visit concludes with an imposing chapel, a little cold, where the most notable is a former Neapolitan creche, populated by dozens of characters reproduced with meticulous realism, the crib is infinitely more alive than the stiff church!

The Royal Palace deserves the adjective.

This huge building houses apartments and private remarkable condition, well maintained throughout, and thirty rooms open to the public is superb, reflecting the splendor of the court of yesteryear.
The splendor is not that of Versailles, but it’s still a very beautiful palace, unusual in its splendor in the midst of a city whose rich heritage is not always the object of attention required, and it would be a shame to go to Naples without visiting it!