Naples

Naples, a beautiful city, full of history and culture, to be visited absolutely. “Napule è mill culur” (Naples is a thousand colors) as Pino Daniele said in one of his famous songs. You can arrive in this beautiful city by train or by car.

In fact, you can reach Naples either with a train stop just 150 meters from our holiday home, or by car via the A3 motorway whose connection is only 400 meters from our house.

Welcome to Naples, a beautiful, artistic city that knows how to amaze any tourist with its very strong history and identity, unchanged over time. A visit to Naples is a fantastic experience: in every corner or alley an amazement, in every square a story and will leave you wanting to go back again.

Some advice on what to see in Naples.

Subsequently, in Roman times, these underground passages were enlarged and adapted to collect rainwater, thus creating an aqueduct that will be used to bring water to Neapolitan houses until 1885! Only after a frightening wave of cholera was it decided to abandon the old system to bring drinking water to homes. But over the centuries the underground life of Naples has been in turmoil almost as much as that on the surface.

Many, however, argue that the surprising effect is all the result of the talent of Giuseppe Sanmartino, the sculptor who created the veiled Christ. The discovery of a secret room and some macabre works, visible in the San Severo Chapel, helped to give the Prince and the veiled Christ an aura of mystery. The Chapel is worth a visit not only for Christ but also for the other works present in this small jewel hidden in the alleys of Naples: a place rich in esoteric and religious symbols.

King Ferdinand IV intended to create an impressive institute for the arts in Naples and, after more than two centuries, it can be said that his ambitions have been realized. The Archaeological Museum, in addition to containing the finds from the excavations of Pompeii, houses finds from the Greco-Roman age, Egyptian and Etruscan antiquities from the Borgia collection and ancient coins from the Santangelo collection. Do not miss the “Secret Cabinet” which collects ancient frescoes and sculptures dedicated to the theme of eroticism.

The collections include works by the greatest names, from Titian to Raphael, from Michelangelo to Caravaggio, from Masaccio to Botticelli. Then again Mantegna, Rosso Fiorentino, Correggio, Parmigianino, Lotto, the Carracci brothers, Goya, Luca Giordano, Ribera, Artemisia Gentileschi and many others.
In addition, there is an extraordinary collection of porcelain and decorative arts, a very rich cabinet of prints and drawings, an important collection of royal tapestries and furniture, without forgetting the precious gallery of the Farnese Mirabilia.

The Real Bosco di Capodimonte was born as a hunting reserve that extends close to the palace for about 134 hectares with over 400 different plant species planted over the course of two centuries.

An uncontaminated green area overlooking the city and the Gulf of Naples.

Thanks to the mild climate and the activity of renowned botanists, many rare and exotic species have been planted here, including camphor and camellias from Asia, magnolias and taxodes from the Americas and Australian eucalyptus.

Between the avenues there are 17 historic buildings including residences, cottages, workshops, warehouses and churches, as well as fountains and statues, gardens and orchards.

For its historical, architectural and botanical heritage, the Bosco di Capodimonte was named the most beautiful park in Italy in 2014.

The vast park, one of the largest in Italy, was designed in 1734 by Ferdinando Sanfelice, one of the greatest architects of the Neapolitan late Baroque, who imagined two distinct sections for style and function: the actual garden in the area around the Reggia , with large panoramic openings on the Gulf of Naples, and the hunting forest, dotted with statues, caves and buildings destined for different uses, such as the church, factories and farms.

It is a visceral and shared sentiment, which over the centuries has overcome prohibitions and restrictions, becoming increasingly stronger. The Chapel and the treasure are the most immediate and important proof of this love for “Yellow Face”, the name with which the Neapolitans call the Saint due to his most famous statue in gilded silver. Preserved for centuries in the Cathedral, during the war events of the Second World War.

The Treasure of San Gennaro was brought to the Vatican to be preserved and brought back to the Cathedral in 1947 through Giuseppe Navarra, nicknamed “o rre di Poggioreale”, who managed to get the precious items intact into the hands of the then archbishop Alessio Ascalesi.

The Chapel has a gate by Cosimo Fanzago, frescoes by Domenichino and works by Ribera. The Treasure of San Gennaro has finally found space in a place next to the Duomo and collects relics and precious objects, which have become oracles of faith.

The Treasury also includes statues, candelabra and various silverware, which devotees have jealously protected during the numerous looting of the city. Testimony of how much the Neapolitans consider San Gennaro to be a close and comforting presence, as if he were a dear neighbor, to be used in times of need but also when you just want to talk a little.

An ancient legend has it that its name derives from having the Latin poet Virgil hidden in the dungeons of the building a magical egg that had the power to keep the entire fortress standing. Its breaking, however, would have caused not only the collapse of the castle, but also a series of disastrous catastrophes in the city of Naples.

During the fourteenth century, at the time of Giovanna I, the castle suffered extensive damage due to the partial collapse of the arch on which it rests and, to prevent panic from spreading among the population for the alleged future catastrophes that would hit the city , the queen had to swear that she had replaced the egg.

In truth, this was one of the many ‘spells’ that were attributed in the Middle Ages to the figure of Virgil, a fame that arose from the fact that the poet lived for a long time in Naples, a city he loved very much and in which he had become a well-known and authoritative character, considered a man capable of superhuman powers, powers which, it seems, he did not bother to deny.

Maschio Angioino dominates the scenic Piazza Municipio and is the seat of the Neapolitan Society of Homeland History and of the Naples Committee of the Institute for the History of the Italian Risorgimento, housed in the premises of the SNSP.

The Civic Museum is also located in the complex, to which the Palatine Chapel and the museum itineraries on the first and second floors belong. The Valenzi Foundation has its representative office here, inaugurated on November 15, 2009 by the then President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano and other authorities, as part of the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Maurizio Valenzi.

The construction of the Maschio Angioino began in 1279, under the reign of Charles I of Anjou, based on a project by the French architect Pierre de Chaule. Due to its strategic position, the new castle covered not only the characteristics of a royal residence, but also those of a fortress. From the beginning it was called “Castrum Novum” to distinguish it from the older ones of the Ovo and Capuano.

During the reign of Robert of Anjou the Castle became a center of culture where artists, doctors and writers including Giotto, Petrarca and Boccaccio stayed. The Angevins were succeeded by the Aragonese with Alfonso I, who following the choice of his predecessors, fixed his royal residence in Castel Nuovo, starting the reconstruction work and having the grandiose Arch of Triumph to celebrate his victorious entry into the city of Naples.

With the Aragonese we witness the transition from the medieval castle-palace to the fortress of the modern age, adapted to the new war requirements and the area around the castle loses the residential character it had with the Angevins. The structure of the Aragonese building is undoubtedly more massive than the Angevin one and fairly faithfully reflects the current one, resulting from the restoration works of the early years of this century.

The monument has a trapezoidal plan formed by a curtain of tuff in which five cylindrical towers are inserted (four of which are of piperno and one of tuff) resting on a base in which patrol paths open. The courtyard area, which traces the Angevin one, is made up of Catalan elements such as the portico with lowered arches and the external staircase in piperno, the work of the Majorcan architect Guglielmo Sagrera, which leads to the Sala dei Baroni and gives this corner of the court the characteristic aspect of the Spanish patios.

At the end of the 15th century the French took over from the Aragonese; this presence did not last long, as the French were in turn replaced by the Spanish and Austrian viceroys. During the viceregal period (1503-1734), the defensive structures of the castle, used for purely military use, were further modified. With the advent of Charles III of Bourbon who defeated the emperor Charles VI in 1734, the castle was surrounded on various occasions by factories of all kinds, deposits and houses.

In the first twenty years of the twentieth century, the works of isolation of the castle from the contiguous buildings began by the Municipality (see video by Bernardo Leonardi); the validity of this intervention stemmed from the recognition of the historical and monumental value of the fortress and from the need for the overall recovery of the square in front.

Currently the monumental complex is destined for cultural use and is, among other things, the seat of the Civic Museum. The museum itinerary is divided between the Armory Room, the Palatine or Santa Barbara Chapel, the first and second floors of the southern curtain to which are added the Carlo V Hall and the Sala della Loggia intended to host exhibitions and cultural initiatives.

Over the span of five centuries, the Certosa has undergone constant renovations; in 1581, a grandiose expansion project was started, entrusted to the architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio, destined to transform its severe Gothic appearance into the current precious and refined Baroque style.

The growing number of monks required a radical restructuring of the Great Cloister: new cells were built and the entire water system was revised. The promoter of this new and spectacular appearance of the Certosa di San Martino is the prior Severo Turboli, in office from the last twenty years of the sixteenth century to 1607. The works started under the direction of Dosio, are continued by Giovan Giacomo di Conforto, who will build the monumental cloister cistern.

On September 6, 1623, the collaboration with the San Martino construction site of the architect Cosimo Fanzago begins, which, among various events, will last until 1656.

Fanzago will connote every place in the monastery with the unmistakable sign of its overbearing personality.

Fanzago’s work is characterized by an extraordinary decorative activity, transforming the traditional geometric decorations into apparatuses composed of foliage, fruits, stylized scrolls, to which the chromatic and volumetric effects give a character of exceptional realism and sensuality. Around 1723, the royal engineer and architect of the Charterhouse Andrea Canale was replaced by his son Nicola Tagliacozzi Canale, better known as an engraver and creator of scenic equipment.

Commonly defined as architect-scenographer, Nicola occupies a place of absolute importance in the refined eighteenth-century culture for what concerns the experimentation of taste in terms of decoration and integration between ornamentation and architectural structure. Participates in that dense and fervent artistic expression that goes by the name of Rococo and which manifests itself with a perfect synthesis between painting, sculpture and architecture.

The complex suffered damage during the 1799 revolution and is occupied by the French. The king orders the abolition of the Carthusians suspected of republican sympathies, but in the end he agrees to the reinstatement. Revoked the suppression, the monks returned to San Martino in 1804.

When the last monks left the Certosa in 1812, the complex was used by the military as the House of War Invalids, until 1831, when it was again abandoned for urgent restorations. In 1836 a small group of monks returned to settle in San Martino and then finally succeeded. With the suppression of religious orders and becoming state property, the Certosa was destined in 1866 as a museum by the will of Giuseppe Fiorelli, annexed to the National Museum as a detached section and opened to the public in 1867.

Come and visit Naples, our holiday home will be happy to host you and let you visit all these fantastic places.

We are very happy to reproduce below the video of Alberto Angela of the broadcast on Rai1 “Tonight in Naples”.