Palazzo Reale ★★

The Royal Palace in Naples

Naples' royal palace had to be restructured following Allied bomb damage in 1943, but retains some sumptuous royal apartments and, in niches along the 18th-century facade, statues of the greatest kings from the eight dynasties that have ruled Naples.

That's right: eight dynasties. Not counting ancient Greece and Rome, Naples has been part of many kingdoms over the past 1,000 years, ruled by many kings: Roger, (Norman—modern day France), Frederick II (Swabian—modern German) Charles I (Angevin—France again), Alfonso (Aragonese—modern Spain), Charles V (Austrian), Charles III (Bourbon—France again),Joachim Murat (French Napoleonic), and finally Vittorio Emanuele II (Savoy—which is to say, France—though ultimately King of Italy as well).

Construction on the palazzo was started by court engineer Domenico Fontana in 1599 under the viceroy Ruiz de Castro, who wished to create one of the most glorious palaces in Spanish king Philip III's kingdom.

The core was finished by 1616, but in 1759 Ferdinando Fuga was brought in by Ferdinand IV to amplify the palazzo with such lovely additions as the ornate Teatro do Corte, built on the occasion of the king's wedding to Maria Carolina of Hapsburg (Marie Antoinette's sister) and decorated with papier-mâché sculpture.

Also here are preserved 15th-century bronze doors from the Castel Nuovo whose reliefs tell of Ferdinand of Aragon's feuds with the local barons (the cannonball jutting out of the bottom of one door is a testament to the battle waged by the French and Genoese navies in Naples' harbor).

Sheets of paper describe each palatial room and its contents in English.

Be sure not to miss the elaborate Throne Room, or Belsario Corenzio's ceiling frescoes in several chambers that depict the Glories of the Spanish Monarchy.

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