Palace of Caserta: Bourbon Royal Residence and Landscape Complex in Italy
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Naples
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page25 sections
History
The Palace of Caserta in Italy was conceived by Charles VII of Naples as a new Bourbon royal residence, court, and administrative centre in the eighteenth century. Founded in 1752 and designed in a late Baroque and early Neoclassical idiom, it was intended to express royal authority while providing the centre of a productive urban settlement. The palace and its associated park, aqueduct, and San Leucio complex were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997.
A new royal centre
Charles chose Caserta as a relatively secure location for his new residence. It lay away from the eruptions of Vesuvius and from maritime attacks such as the British raid of 1742. The king acquired the Caserta estate and its existing villa from the Caetani family in 1750–1751. The older villa had already been described as neglected in 1717, making it suitable for replacement by a much larger royal complex.
The project was intended to rival Versailles and drew additional inspiration from La Granja de San Ildefonso. Its ambitions extended beyond the palace itself. The plan included gardens, a new water supply, urban infrastructure, and a productive settlement that would be largely self-sufficient. The wider town plan was influenced by enlightened urban models associated with Vienna and Paris.
Luigi Vanvitelli was selected as architect after Charles received permission from Pope Benedict XIV. Vanvitelli’s project reached Naples on 22 November 1751. It combined the theatrical spatial effects of the late Baroque with the ordered proportions and classical vocabulary of early Neoclassicism. The foundation ceremony took place on 20 January 1752, Charles VII’s thirty-sixth birthday, before the papal nuncio, the royal family, ministers, foreign ambassadors, and members of the court. Gold medallions bearing laudatory inscriptions were placed inside the first stone.
Construction and royal occupation
Construction advanced quickly at first. More than 2,000 workers and enslaved people were employed by 1760. Much of the building material came from nearby areas, including tuff from San Nicola la Strada, lime from San Leucio, gray marble from Mondragone, pozzolana from Bacoli, and travertine from Bellona. White Carrara marble and iron from Follonica were transported from farther away.
The work slowed after Charles left for Spain in 1759 to become king there. His young successor, Ferdinand IV, ruled with the assistance of the regent Bernardo Tanucci. A cholera epidemic and famine halted construction in 1764, and the project was affected again the following year. Royal support later increased and building resumed.
Vanvitelli died in 1773, after which his son Carlo Vanvitelli and other architects continued the work. The palace was occupied before the entire design had been completed. In 1780 the royal family moved from the older Palazzo Vecchio at Caserta into the new palace, while Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina initially used rooms intended for the crown prince.
Some spaces were completed early. The court theatre was inaugurated in 1769 and was the only part of the palace completed, including its decoration, during Luigi Vanvitelli’s lifetime. The Palatine Chapel was consecrated in 1784. The palace became a principal residence of the Bourbon rulers of Naples and, after 1816, of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the state ruled by the Bourbon dynasty until Italian unification. It was used mainly as a winter residence, with shorter stays in spring, rather than chiefly as a summer palace.
War, restoration, and completion
The palace was confiscated during the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, the short-lived republican government established during the French invasion of the Kingdom of Naples. It escaped major structural damage, but its furnishings were looted. Important pieces were recovered after the Bourbon Restoration. During the French period, Joachim Murat commissioned new Neoclassical interiors, especially the rooms later called the Appartamento Nuovo or Appartamento Murattiano. These works remained incomplete after Murat’s fall in 1815, and references to Napoleon were subsequently removed.
The Bourbon rulers continued the interior works after 1815. The Hall of Astrea was completed in 1822. Work on the Throne Hall had begun in the early nineteenth century under Pietro Bianchi, and Gaetano Genovese completed it in 1845. Construction was officially completed in 1845–1847, although substantial parts of the originally planned interiors remained unfinished.
Financial difficulties forced changes to Vanvitelli’s design. Four projected corner towers, the central dome, and guard quarters intended to enclose the forecourt were removed from the scheme. The grand urban plan and the approximately fifteen-kilometre direct avenue toward Naples were also left incomplete.
Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies died at the palace on 22 May 1859. On 21 October 1860, during the formation of unified Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote from Caserta to Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, transferring the province of Terra di Lavoro to him. After the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, the palace passed to the House of Savoy. From 1866, paintings and furnishings from the dismantled Palace of Portici, including objects associated with the Murat period, were transferred to Caserta.
Parts of the complex later housed military and administrative institutions. These included an army school for non-commissioned officers, the Guardia di Finanza academy, and, during the 1920s until 1943, the Italian Air Force Academy. In 1919 Victor Emmanuel III transferred the palace and its complex to the Italian state. The royal apartments opened as a museum that year, while other parts were assigned to official bodies. In 2016 the museum received special autonomous status from the Italian Ministry of Culture.
The palace suffered substantial damage during the Second World War. It became Allied headquarters in late 1943, and on 27 April 1945 German forces in Italy signed their unconditional surrender there to the Anglo-American forces. Postwar restoration addressed both the palace and the badly damaged gardens. Original drawings, plans, paintings, and documents guided the recovery of boxwood designs, fountain layouts, interiors, furnishings, and decorative schemes. The principal restoration works ended around 1958, after which the museum incorporated the royal apartments, court theatre, and gardens.
Remains
Palace structure and ceremonial route
The palace is a monumental rectangular building measuring approximately 247 metres in length, 190 metres in width, and 41–42 metres in height. It contains about 47,000 square metres of building area, 1,200 rooms, 1,742 windows, 34 staircases, and 1,026 chimneys. Two intersecting wings form a cross-shaped plan with four internal courtyards. Their chamfered corners are set at 45 degrees, and each courtyard measures approximately 74 by 52 metres. Five principal levels consist of the ground floor, mezzanine, piano nobile, second floor, and attic. A partly underground level contains cellars, kitchens, workshops, and narrow slit windows.
Façades and forecourt
The two principal elevations face the forecourt and the park. Their façades combine brick, Santo Iorio travertine, and marbles from Carrara, Sicily, and southern Italy. Rusticated masonry marks the ground and first floors, while semicolumns, pilasters, and a large order define the piano nobile, the main ceremonial and residential floor. The upper windows are arranged within a classical composition, and a balustrade protects the cornice.
The main façade has 245 windows and three entrances. Paired columns frame the central entrance, which bears an inscription commemorating Charles and Ferdinand IV and recording the construction dates. Four planned statues representing Magnificence, Justice, Clemency, and Peace, together with a statue of Charles III, were never executed. The elliptical forecourt was designed for military parades. Guard quarters were planned along its sides but were not built, and the projected direct avenue toward Naples was only partly realized.
Gallery and vestibules
The central entrance leads to the internal gallery, also called the Cannocchiale. Its long perspective passes through the palace toward the park, fountains, and artificial cascade of Mount Briano. Three passages organize the route, with a central way for carriages and two lateral ways for pedestrians.
At the centre of the palace, the lower vestibule has an octagonal plan and provides views toward all four courtyards. Its sculpture includes the three-metre-high marble Resting Hercules, once attributed to Andrea Violani and later identified as a sculpture from the Baths of Caracalla brought to Naples in 1766. Other works include Venus and Germanicus by Violani and Apollo and Antinous by Pietro Solari. These sculptures formed part of the decoration associated with the Farnese collection.
Ceremonial staircase
The ceremonial staircase begins on the right side of the lower vestibule. A central flight reaches a landing and divides into two parallel flights leading to the upper vestibule. Approximately 117 steps of white Carrara marble are set among coloured marble wall decoration, Billiemi marble columns, and 24 windows. Two marble lions by Paolo Persico and Tommaso Solari represent the strength of arms and reason.
Three niches in the staircase wall contain plaster statues originally intended for marble. They represent Royal Majesty, shown as Charles of Bourbon, Merit, and Truth, with works by Tommaso Solari, Andrea Violani, and Gaetano Salomone. The vault carries Girolamo Starace Franchis’s Reggia di Apollo and medallions representing the seasons.
Upper vestibule and theatre
The upper vestibule repeats the octagonal design of the lower one but uses 24 columns. Eight trapezoidal columns are made from red brecciolina, while sixteen Ionic columns use yellow brecciolina from the Gargano. During the Bourbon period, an orchestra was placed above the vault to greet arriving guests with music.
The court theatre opens from the western side of the lower vestibule. Built in approximately ten years and inaugurated in 1769, it has a horseshoe-shaped auditorium with five tiers of boxes, a royal box, and a parterre. Crescenzo Gamba’s fresco Apollo Crushing the Python covers the vault. The small stage could open directly onto the park, using the landscape as a natural backdrop. The original interior used blue damask, restrained gilding, and elaborate stage machinery.
Palatine Chapel
The Palatine Chapel occupies one of the wings opening from the upper vestibule. Its gallery-like plan ends in a semicircular apse and includes a marble colonnade, following the arrangement of the chapel at Versailles. Dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, it was consecrated in 1784. The altar carries Giuseppe Bonito’s painting of the Immaculate Conception.
Royal apartments and state rooms
The royal apartments occupy the southern half of the piano nobile. Their decoration ranges from eighteenth-century Rococo, an ornamental style known for lightness, asymmetry, and curving forms, to the monumental Neoclassical Empire style associated with the Napoleonic period. The apartments are organized into guard rooms, the Appartamento Vecchio or Settecento, and the Appartamento Nuovo or Ottocento.
Early Bourbon rooms
The Hall of the Halberdiers was designed by Luigi Vanvitelli and completed by Carlo Vanvitelli. Domenico Mondo’s 1789 fresco, The Arms of the Bourbon House Supported by Virtue, fills the vault. Marble-framed doors and windows carry stucco arms and trophies, while eight female allegories of the arts in scagliola were made by Tommaso Bucciano between 1787 and 1789.
The Hall of the Corps Guards, also known as the Hall of Stucco, has Doric pilasters and stucco wall decoration. Its 1785 ceiling fresco by Girolamo Starace Franchis represents The Glory of the Prince and the Twelve Provinces of the Kingdom. The room contains Bourbon busts, a fireplace by Carlo Beccalli, Neapolitan consoles, Empire stools transferred from the Tuileries Palace at Murat’s order, and twelve reliefs depicting episodes from the Second Punic War. Alessandro Farnese Crowned by Victory, a Farnese marble sculpture, was transferred to Caserta in 1789.
The Hall of Alexander stands at the centre of the main façade. It retains Carlo Vanvitelli’s original decoration but was converted into a throne room during the French period. Murat’s Empire-style throne was made by Georges Jacob for Napoleon Bonaparte. Reliefs associated with Murat were removed after the Bourbon Restoration and replaced with paintings, including Gennaro Maldarelli’s 1849 Abdication of Charles of Bourbon in Favour of Ferdinand IV and Camillo Guerra’s Victory of Charles of Bourbon at the Battle of Velletri. Mariano Rossi’s 1787 ceiling fresco depicts the marriage of Alexander the Great and Roxana. The room also contains scenes from Alexander’s life, a marble medallion of Alexander by Valerio Villareale, and a 24-hour clock from 1828.
French-period apartments
The Appartamento Murattiano was established during the French occupation and decorated in Neoclassical and Empire styles with San Leucio silks. Its rooms include the First and Second Antechambers, Murat’s bedroom, and two further antechambers. Their paintings include Minerva Invites Telemachus to Leave Ithaca, Hector Rebukes Paris, and a scene of Murat offering a meal to the poor. Murat’s bedroom contains an Empire canopy bed designed by Étienne-Chérubin Leconte and furnishings transferred from Portici.
The Hall of Mars, an antechamber for titled nobles, senior officers, and foreign intendants, was redesigned to celebrate the French conquest of Naples. Antonio De Simone and Leconte were involved in its design. Antonio Calliano’s 1813 ceiling paintings represent Achilles Protected by Mars and The Death of Hector. Its floor, completed in 1815, combines green antique marble, alabaster, and Carrara marble in geometric patterns.
The Hall of Astrea served ambassadors, state secretaries, and other privileged persons. Commissioned by Murat and designed by De Simone with Leconte’s assistance, it has Jacques Berger’s 1815 ceiling fresco The Triumph of Astrea, inspired by Caroline Bonaparte. Its reliefs include Valerio Villareale’s Minerva as Reason between Stability and Legislation and Domenico Masucci’s Astrea between Hercules and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Throne Hall and adjoining rooms
The Throne Hall measures 35 by 13 metres and is lit by six windows. Pietro Bianchi began its construction in the early nineteenth century, and Gaetano Genovese completed it in 1845 for the Congress of Italian Scientists. Twenty-eight paired fluted columns, Bourbon symbols, and 44 medallions depicting the kings of Naples from Roger the Norman to Ferdinand II line the walls. Gennaro Maldarelli’s 1845 ceiling fresco represents the laying of the palace’s foundation stone in 1752. The gilded wooden throne, made in the nineteenth century, has winged-lion armrests, two sirens symbolizing Naples, and blue velvet upholstery.
The Sala del Consiglio contains Giuseppe Cammarano’s 1814 ceiling fresco Pallas Rewards the Arts and Sciences through the Genius of Glory. It also holds a Neobaroque Sèvres porcelain table presented by Naples to Francis II for his marriage to Maria Sophia of Bavaria. Rooms associated with Francis II include a private sitting room with a hardstone console by Gennaro Cappella, a bedroom once used by Murat, and a Neoclassical bathroom made in 1829. The bathroom contains a granite bathtub decorated with lions and a Carrara marble toilet.
Appartamento Vecchio and the king’s rooms
The Appartamento Vecchio was originally planned for the crown prince but was occupied by Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina from the late eighteenth century. Carlo Vanvitelli completed the apartment after his father’s death and designed much of its furniture and decoration. Its principal rooms are the halls of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, whose seasonal mythological programmes are expressed through frescoed vaults, painted floors, Murano-glass chandeliers, Neapolitan paintings, and royal furnishings.
The Hall of Spring contains Antonio De Dominicis’s ceiling fresco and landscape paintings by Jakob Philipp Hackert, including views of Castellammare, Ischia, Naples, and Gaeta. Fedele Fischetti’s 1778–1779 fresco in the Hall of Summer represents Proserpina returning to Ceres. The room also has medallions of Diana, Apollo, Jupiter, and Neptune, a Mondragone marble console, and a petrified-wood table by Girolamo Segato.
The former dining room, the Hall of Autumn, has De Dominicis’s fresco of the meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne, medallions of satyrs and maenads, Neapolitan still lifes, mythological paintings by Gaetano Starace, Capodimonte porcelain fruit bowls, and eighteenth-century Saxony vases. The Hall of Winter contains scenes of Boreas and Orithyia and Venus and Adonis, paintings by Hackert, furnishings transferred from Villa Favorita, and a hardstone and gilded-wood table made by Giovanni Mugnai in 1804.
The King’s Apartment includes Ferdinand IV’s study, where Gaetano Magri decorated the ceiling with flowers and griffins and Carlo Brunelli provided seven allegorical cameos. Hackert’s gouaches and military scenes are displayed with Giustiniani red-figure vases and furniture by Adam Weisweiler, much of it replaced by late nineteenth-century copies. Ferdinand IV’s bedroom later became associated with the death of Ferdinand II in 1859. Because the illness was considered contagious, the original furniture was burned and the room was refurnished in the Empire style.
Queen’s rooms and reception spaces
Maria Carolina’s Queen’s Apartment consists of four rooms decorated in the 1780s. The workroom has a fresco of Mars, Apollo, Jupiter, and Mercury by Antonio De Dominicis, a gilded bronze and wood chandelier decorated with small tomato forms, yellow satin wall coverings, Castellammare mirrors, and clocks from Vienna and by Pierre Jaquet-Droz.
The Queen’s private sitting room, the Cabinet of Mirrors, contains Fedele Fischetti’s ceiling fresco The Toilet of Venus, stucco flower garlands around the mirrors, and furniture by Gennaro Fiore and Bartolomeo Di Natale upholstered in San Leucio silk. The Rocaille-style bathroom has fruit and flower garlands, paintings of the Birth of Venus and the Three Graces, a white marble and copper-lined bath by Gaetano Salomone, a mahogany bidet, and gilded-bronze fittings.
The Hall of the Golden Age began as a bedroom and became a reception room in the mid-nineteenth century. Fischetti’s 1779 ceiling fresco accompanies paintings associated with Music, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Harmony, works by Francesco De Mura and Giuseppe Bonito, and painted wooden seating. The Hall of the Court Ladies has Fischetti and Filippo Pascale’s fresco of Aurora Carrying off Cephalus and portraits of women from antiquity by Domenico Mondo.
Library, archive, and collections
The Palatine Library was created for Maria Carolina along the eastern side of the palace and later enlarged under Murat and Ferdinand II. Its approximately 14,000 volumes cover European, Neapolitan, and Viennese culture, archaeology, mathematics, geography, botany, zoology, opera, dance, music, and Neapolitan theatre. The collection includes Vanvitelli’s illustrated project publication, works by Montesquieu, Gaetano Filangieri, and Giambattista Vico, archaeological publications on Herculaneum and Pompeii, and an 1846 record of a Caserta tournament with 72 coloured plates.
The library has two reading rooms and three library rooms. The first reading room contains Filippo Pascale’s fresco of a planisphere surrounded by zodiacal signs and constellations, mahogany bookcases, eighteenth-century Giustiniani copies of ancient vases, and paintings of the inauguration of the Naples–Portici railway. Another room has floral frescoes, mahogany shelves, walnut cupboards, a chair that also functions as a library ladder, porcelain lamps, and paintings by Luca Giordano and his school. The third room contains allegorical frescoes by Heinrich Friedrich Fuger, a brass barometer and telescope by John Dollond, terrestrial and celestial globes by Didier Robert de Vaugondy, and an octagonal pyramidal bookcase.
The Historical Archive was founded by Ferdinand IV and inaugurated on 25 May 1784. It preserves administrative records for Caserta, San Leucio, and Carditello from 1750 to 1860, as well as documents concerning royal sites, commissions to artists and craftsmen, construction costs, and employed workers. Approximately 10,000 volumes date from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, alongside later records concerning the management of Bourbon properties after Italian unification.
The Sala Ellittica was originally a domestic theatre for the royal children. Since 1988 it has contained a reconstructed Royal Nativity Scene, first assembled in 1844 by Giovanni Cobianchi. Paintings by Salvatore Fregola helped recreate its original setting, which includes the Nativity, an inn, a Georgian caravan, and scenes of popular and rural life. Rooms behind the Hall of the Throne and Hall of Astrea preserve drawings and models of the palace, including Antonio Rosz’s model made between 1756 and 1759, models of the Halls of Mars and Astrea, a model of the Throne Hall and Aeolus Fountain, and preparatory studies by Luigi and Carlo Vanvitelli and other artists.
Park and water axis
Luigi Vanvitelli designed the park, and Carlo Vanvitelli completed it with the assistance of botanists. It covers approximately 120 hectares and extends for nearly three kilometres. The composition combines an Italian garden, a monumental water promenade, and an English garden, drawing on Versailles and La Granja de San Ildefonso. The Carolino Aqueduct supplied the fountains and channels and made possible the descending sequence of pools, cascades, and waterfalls that forms the park’s principal axis.
Italian garden and fountains
The Italian garden contains geometric beds, fountains, the old wood, the Peschiera, and the Castelluccia. Its central axis runs from the palace through the circular Margherita or Canestro Fountain, across the semi-elliptical Bridge of Hercules, and along the Via d’Acqua. This water promenade is formed by successive fountains, basins, small cascades, and the final artificial waterfall.
The upper fishpond measures approximately 475 metres by 30 metres and ends at the Dolphin Fountain, made by Gaetano Salomone in 1799. The fountain represents two dolphins beside a clawed sea monster. The unfinished Fountain of Aeolus was planned with more than 50 statues of winds, Aeolus and Juno on a peacock-drawn chariot, and scenes from the Aeneid. Its surviving sculptural groups are made from Montegrande marble.
Gaetano Salomone made the Fountain of Ceres, or Zampilliera, in 1783–1784. Its central group shows Ceres holding a medallion with the symbol of Trinacria, accompanied by tritons, dolphins, Nereids, and personifications of the Sicilian rivers Anapo and Arethusa. Salomone made the Fountain of Venus and Adonis in white Carrara marble between 1784 and 1789. It represents Venus trying to persuade Adonis to go hunting.
The Fountain of Diana and Actaeon was made by Pietro and Tommaso Solari, Angelo Maria Brunelli, and Paolo Persico. It illustrates the myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with Diana and her nymphs in one group and Actaeon, transformed into a stag and attacked by his dogs, in the other.
Artificial cascade and old wood
The artificial cascade is approximately 78 metres high and ends at an artificial grotto about 204 metres above the park. Its water originally came from the Carolino Aqueduct and is now circulated by pumps. The cascade and paths at the summit provide views across the park and palace toward the Phlegraean Fields and Ischia.
The old wood was formerly part of the Acquaviva estate. It contains the Castelluccia and the Great Fishpond, both planned for Ferdinand IV’s military exercises before being converted into recreational spaces. The adjacent Boschetto Palace was built by the Acquaviva family and later passed to the Caetani, who decorated it with frescoes by Belisario Corenzio.
Francesco Collecini built the Castelluccia in 1769 after Vanvitelli’s design, incorporating the sixteenth-century Pernesta or Acquaviva tower. It originally resembled a miniature fortified castle, complete with a moat and drawbridges for simulated battles. Restored in 1819, it became a hunting and leisure pavilion with an octagonal plan and a circular tower-like upper storey.
Collecini also completed the Great Fishpond in 1769 after Vanvitelli’s design. Approximately 270 metres long and slightly more than 105 metres wide, it has an elliptical plan and a parapet interrupted by small piers. An island at the centre was intended to carry a pavilion with small cannon for simulated naval battles. The pond was later used for receptions and court recreation.
English Garden
Maria Carolina commissioned the English Garden with advice from Maria Antonietta and Lord William Hamilton. John Andrew Graefer designed it from 1786 with Carlo Vanvitelli. Covering approximately 23 hectares, it combines woodland and cultivated areas, artificial lakes, a stream, lawns, ruins, statues, and apparently natural planting.
Plant collections and garden buildings
Graefer introduced and propagated exotic plants from Japan, China, Australia, and other parts of the kingdom. They included camellias, aloe, agave, acacia, banksia, yew, cedar of Lebanon, camphor, ginkgo, eucalyptus, palms, and rare or hybrid species. The aqueduct’s channels supplied irrigation, while artificially recreated ruins contributed to the garden’s designed scenery.
The garden includes an entrance with a sphinx and a statue of Atlas, a recreated Doric temple made with Roman remains from Pompeii, an apiary, the Pyramid, the Shepherd’s Fountain, the Lake of Venus, the cryptoporticus, a second lake with two islands, an artificial ruined temple, a semicircular temple, an ornamental chapel façade, an orchard, and a botanical-agricultural garden.
The apiary was first planned by Vanvitelli as a reservoir that could keep the fountains operating if the aqueduct failed. During the French period it became a centre for beekeeping and honey production. In 1828 it was converted into a greenhouse with heated and unheated sections. Its Neoclassical semicircular structure contains Tommaso Solari’s statue of Flora, dated 1761.
Lakes, ruins, and cryptoporticus
The Shepherd’s Fountain is surrounded by ferns, papyrus, and maidenhair fern and contains a shepherd playing a panpipe. The Lake of Venus takes its name from Tommaso Solari’s 1762 Carrara marble statue of Venus looking at her reflection. A stream and cascades connect it with another lake containing water lilies, a small island with a shelter for swans and waterfowl, and a larger island planted with camellia, yew, and Melaleuca.
Carlo Vanvitelli designed the cryptoporticus in a former pozzolana quarry. A cryptoporticus is a covered passage or gallery, and this semicircular tunnel imitates a ruined ancient temple. Its tuff walls expose patches of opus reticulatum, an ancient Roman masonry technique using small diamond-set blocks in a net-like pattern. The passage has a barrel vault with artificial cracks, a coloured-marble mosaic floor, and eleven statues from Pompeii and the Farnese collection.
Greenhouses and gardener’s house
The botanical-agricultural garden contains four terrace-built greenhouses. One has a heated interior and glass roof, while three are masonry structures. They were used for seed production, plant research, experimentation, and the winter protection and propagation of species from China, Japan, and Australia.
Carlo Vanvitelli built the English, or gardener’s, house between 1790 and 1794. It began as a court retreat and later became Graefer’s residence and storehouse. The building has two principal floors, eleven rooms on the ground floor, twelve on the first floor, a loft, and a seed and tool store. Its façade has Doric columns and a cornice with medallions. The grounds include palms, a basin for aquatic plants, and a rose garden.
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