Capodimonte Royal Palace and Museum

The Royal Palace was built on the Capodimonte Hill, in 1738, by order of the king of Naples, Charles III of Bourbon, to house the famous Farnese Arts Collection that he inherited from his mother, Elisabetta Farnese, who was the last heir of this famous and powerful Italian family. In 1759, when Charles III of Bourbon left Naples to become the king of Spain, his son, Ferdinand IV, replaced him in ruling the Kingdom of Naples and its capital, Naples. The Capodimonte Royal Palace was soon enriched with items coming from different collections and including paintings by the most important Italian and foreign painters, such as Titian, Raphael, Michaelangel, Correggio, Parmigianino, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Masaccio, Goya, El Greco, Mengs, Van Dyck, Brueghel the Elder and many other famous artists.
The museum is arranged on three floors: the 1st floor hosts the Farnese Arts Collection, paintings and rare objects, and the Royal Apartments, with furnishings and decorative arts, which are part of the extraordinary Farnese family collection.
The second floor hosts the gallery of the Arts in Naples, with artworks made by the most important Neapolitan and southern Italy painters, covering a period which goes from the 13th century up to the 18th century. Most of those paintings were collected from churches and suppressed monasteries, but there are also donations by private benefactors. On the third floor the section dedicated to late Bourbon age and post-unification period, is very important, as it gives us an idea of the contribution that Neapolitan painters gave to the emergence of a wide national, and sometimes international, figurative language, during the 19th century.
A special section on contemporary arts is dedicated to all those artists of international fame who exhibited in Naples during the last few decades.

Highlights: Farnese collection paintings, tapestries and objects
                  Royal apartments
                  Neapolitan art