Realized by Luigi Vanvitelli for king Charles of Bourbon in 1752, the Royal Palace is charatcerized by a Majestic rectangular building with four courtyards connected by galleries and by a broad park with gardens, fountains, waterfalls and sculptures. The two main façades, one facing the piazza d’Armi, the other facing the park, are characterized by a sequence of windows, mouldings, frames and pilasters in brick and travertine. The Palace includes 1200 rooms that, in the original project by Vanvitelli, has, apart from the royal residence, also the houses for the troops and the administration offices. From the central vestibule on the ground floor you enter the scenographic flight of steps in polychrome marbles that divides into two other flights of steps that give access to the royal residence and the Palatine chapel. Very interesting and precious is the small court theatre, a perfect miniature re production of the S. Carlo theatre in Naples, with 42 upper-circle boxes set on 5 levels decorated with festoons, puttoes and masks. The entire complex of the Royal Palace extends along a central axis, dotted with three octagonal atriums, and behind the building on the long alley that leads to the park. The latter is divided into three areas: the parterre behind the Royal palace with the so-called “old wood”, the Fish-pond and the grassland with flower-beds, hedges, walkways and statues; the central area along the alley with water basins, waterfalls and sculptures and an English garden with arboreal essences, small lakes and streams.

The Borbonic Royal Sites

Visiting the Borbonic court, is like a tour of the seventeenth century Campania. Discover Caserta’s Royal Palace, the Italian Versailles, San Leucio and the Royal Site of Carditello. The Royal Palace and its gardens were the royal residence and the place of government during the reign first of Charles, then of Ferdinand the IV. The other two sites were popular for leisure activities such as hunting and promenading.

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