The Museum of Capodimonte

The King of Naples, Charles of Bourbon wanted many famous monuments the city, and therefore the idea to construct a royal “hunting casino” palace on the hill of Capodimonte was begun.
Amidst approximately seven kilometers of secular forest, King Bourbon proposed his plan to the Italian architect Angelo Carasale, who was than working on the Theater S. Carlo in Naples.
Carasale handed over the direction of the work on the theater to Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Antonio Canevari who accepted the job of creating the palace.
The first stone was placed in 1738, but the construction dragged on for over twenty years due to the great difficulty caused by the transport of the marble from the quarry of Pianura.
Finally, in 1758 the wonderful Farnese collections, inherited by King Charles through his mother, where arranged in the ample building with its immense courtyards.
Ferdinando IV, Charles’s successor, entrusted the architect Ferdinando Fuga to the enlargement of the Palace along with the work of the park.
With the transfer of all the collections of art to the Palace of the Studies, now the National Archaeological Museum, during the French decade (1806-1815) the Royal Palace became the residence of Giuseppe Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, and Gioacchino Murat, brother-in-law to Guiseppe and King of Naples.
The residential function was confirmed by Ferdinando who returned from Sicilian exile in 1815, and who then undertook new improvements on the palace and the park.
Many painters, sculptors and craftsmen were called in to decorate the rooms of the Royal Palace, particularly the “ salone delle feste” (festival hall) and in about the middle of the century, the palace was finally completed.
After the Unity of Italy, Capodimonte passed to the Savoia, who, thanks to the action of Annibale Sacco, promoted the enrichment of the collections of art by the transfer of furnishings and objects from the abolished Royal Bourbon sites, among which the famous Maria Amalia of Sassonia’s boudoir from Portici and the monumental Roman age marble floor from the Favorita of Resina.
At the same time a gallery of modern art was started by buying contemporary art done by young Neapolitans. After Sacco’s death the attempt to fuse the two souls of Capodimonte; residence and museum, failed. The palace became the residence to the Dukes of Aosta’s.
In 1920 it passed from the civil list to public domain, but it wasn’t until 1950, with the approval of the “Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione” (minister of public instruction) that it again became a museum by a project initiated by Bruna Malaioli who foresaw the return of the collection of medieval and modern art collections from the National Museum.