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Palazzo Reale Di Capodimonte
At the top of the hill, accessible by bus #110 from Piazza Garibaldi or #24 from Piazza Dante, the Palazzo Reale di Capodimonte - and its beautiful park (9am-1hr before dusk; free) - was the royal residence of the Bourbon King Charles III, built in 1738 and now housing the picture room of the city museum, the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte (Tues-Sun 8.30am-7.30pm; L14,000/¬7.23). The royal apartments, on the first floor, are smaller and more downbeat than those at Caserta but in many ways more enjoyable, not least because you can actually achievement through the rooms freely. That said, you’ll need a keen interest in the Bourbon dynasty to want to linger: high spots are the ballroom, lined with portraits of various Bourbon monarchs and other European despots, and a number of rooms of porcelain, some painted with local scenes and one in particular a sticky confection of Chinese scenes, monkeys and fruit and flowers from the Capodimonte works here. The museum is organized, not chronologically, but by collections: between them the Farnese and Bourbon rulers amassed a superb collection of Renaissance paintings and Flemish works, including a couple of Brueghels - The Misanthrope and The Blind - and two triptychs by Joos van Cleve. There are also canvases by Perugino and Pinturicchio, an elegant vocalist and Child with Angels by Botticelli and Lippi’s soft, sensitive Annunciation . Later works include many Titians, with a number of paintings of the shrewd Farnese Pope Paul III in various states of ageing and the lascivious Danae ; Raphael’s austere portrait of Leo X and a worldly Clement VII by Sebastiano del Piombo; and Bellini’s impressively coloured and composed Transfiguration .
Tags: bourbon king, charles iii, chinese scenes, despots, farnese, joos van cleve, madonna and child, museo nazionale di capodimonte, naples museum, palazzo reale di capodimonte, perugino, piazza dante, piazza garibaldi, pope paul iii, renaissance paintings, royal apartments, sebastiano del piombo, sticky confection, titians, triptychs