The work of the Royal Palace, from the Bourbon collection, depicts sleeping Venus with a Amorino at her side, who is also sleeping, while a satyr gazes at her through a mirror, a symbol of vanity and lust, which also appear, on the first floor, among the flowers, the globe with around the snake, the bow and the quiver.

As part of the Jordanian production, the work is placed during the sixties of the seventeenth century, when the reference of the master to Venetian painting of Titian origin is more evident, in the chromatism and fluidity of the pictorial material and in the composition itself.

Of the painting, in the Royal Palace until 1832 and then from 1979, there is a very similar version, although of smaller dimensions, in a private collection and a variant of the theme preserved at the Capodimonte Museum.

The work, which was commissioned directly by the king in 1818-19 and placed in the Second Anteroom of the Royal Apartment, portrays him after his resettlement on the throne of Naples, at the end of the decade of French domination (1805-1815), when, on the occasion of the Bourbon Restoration, Ferdinand changed his title from Ferdinando IV king of Naples to Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies.

The king is depicted standing next to the throne and with his right hand points to the basilica of San Francesco di Paola, which he had built, in the Largo di Palazzo, as an ex votov to the Calabrian saint for having regained the kingdom. He wears the habit of a Knight of the Order of San Gennaro, founded by Charles of Bourbon on 3 July 1738, on the occasion of his wedding with Maria Amalia of Saxony. After a long reign, which began in 1759 at the age of eight, on his death in 1825 Ferdinand I was buried in Santa Chiara with the habit of the Order of San Gennaro.

Maria Antonia di Baviera was the wife of Frederich Christian von Sachen, Elector of Saxony, son of August III of Saxony, king of Poland from 1734 to 1763. The presence of the portrait in the Throne Room is motivated by the close ties of kinship with the Neapolitan court of Maria Antonia, sister-in-law of the queen of Naples Maria Amalia of Saxony, daughter of Augustus III of Saxony and wife of King Charles of Bourbon.

Maria Antonia is portrayed almost full-length, with a very large robe and her right hand resting on the crown. The elegant taffeta dress is wrapped in a royal cape in blue velvet lined with ermine, the royal symbol par excellence. On the bodice, the Electress wears the insignia of the order of Saint Catherine founded by Emperor Peter I in 1714 in honor of the Empress Catherine, his wife.

Passionate about art and music of which she was a great promoter, Maria Antonia was herself a musician, an expert in harpsichord; he has composed several works including "Talestri, Queen of the Amazons", a musical drama composed in 1763 and published in 1765, of which the Aria "Da te mi dividi" is proposed. The work could be autobiographical because the protagonist recognizes that she has the strength and energy to save her people.

The portrait was made on the occasion of the signing of an important diplomatic agreement between the Kingdom of Naples and the Sublime Porta, the ancient Ottoman Empire: the "Treaty of peace, navigation and commerce", signed on 7 April 1740, with which the king of Naples laid the foundations for a resumption of trade in the Mediterranean, stemming the phenomenon of piracy. By virtue of this agreement, Sultan Mahmud I sent Ambassador Haji HusseinEffendi to Naples, who arrived on 30 August 1741, was received at court on 18 September and stayed in the city for a month, with a very rich and colorful following.

In memory of the event, King Charles commissioned the painting to Giuseppe Bonito, official court painter. Bonito placed the figure of the ambassador at the center of the scene with the exponents of the main ranks of the embassy around him. The Effendi wears a velvet dolimàno with silk brocades worked with flowers, under the feràce, a long cloak; the peich, or staffieri, wear satin or damask dresses with light shapes and different colors, wrapped in a silk belt. On the head of the characters is the typical turban, wrapped around a red cap, which was called a horn. At the Prado Museum in Madrid there is an autograph replica of the painting, sent to the Queen of Spain Elisabetta Farnese, mother of Charles of Bourbon.

The ceiling of the room is decorated with frescoes with the “Stories of Consalvo de Cordova”, first viceroy of Naples, winner in the war for the possession of the Kingdom of Naples between France and Spain (1502-1504).

The large scenes of the rectangular compartments depict "The Conquest of Calabria", "the Challenge of Barletta", "The Duel with La Palisse in Ruvo di Puglia", "Consalvo di Cordova's meeting with the ambassadors of Naples who offer him the keys of the city ”and, on the wall of the balcony“ The triumphant entry into Naples of the Gran Capitano through Porta Capuana ”.

The coats of arms of the viceroy Count of Lemos, who ruled from 1610 to 1616, are painted in the angular segments of the vault. authority that is far away: the king of Spain.

The seventeenth-century sources already mentioned Battistello Caracciolo as a painter active in the Royal Palace, but the attribution of the frescoes dates back to the scholar Roberto Longhi (1943). In this cycle Battistello paints with a strictly narrative will, completely akin to Caravaggio's naturalistic choice, the portrait of which appears among the onlookers at the center of the scene of the Ambassadors, representing a tribute to the great Master perhaps just a year after his death.

The painting pays homage to the Neapolitan confectionery tradition. On the right, on a pewter stand, a rich offer of delicacies is depicted, among which it is possible to identify fan-shaped biscuits, covered with honey, slices of sponge cake and long aniseed biscuits, called anesi . On the left, however, in contrast to the elegant backsplash, a more popular cuoppo (funnel-shaped foil) of the Neapolitan culinary tradition is depicted, containing white sweets, probably sweet dumplings of sugar paste or chunks of royal pasta to be nibbled with fingers. Their shape also evokes a type of candy known at the time as franfellicchi, sweets made from a soft skein of stringy sugar, which were sold on the street.

The Palatine Chapel is dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption, therefore the central painting of the ceiling, made by Domenico Morelli, one of the greatest Italian painters of the nineteenth century, represents the Assumption of the Madonna. The work was commissioned to the Neapolitan artist by Annibale Sacco's Deputy Intendant of the Royal House in 1864. On May 2 of that year, in fact, the painter received from the Royal House 4,500 lire as an advance of the 20,000 lire agreed for the work.

The realization of the canvas took a very long time mainly due to its size (9.80 x 5.56 m). It is thought that the artist, after the preparatory studies and the approval of the sketch, executed the painting in the Royal Chapel itself, since it is problematic to place the canvas in one's studio without folding it.

The work was completed in June 1870, arousing unanimous acclaim in the criticism of the time.

“L'Assunta”, thanks to a preventive intervention to remove the canvas, which was lowered down and placed in a safe place, was saved from the bombing in August 1943, which destroyed the vault of the chapel. A recent restoration with consolidation of the pictorial film, cleaning, varnishing and pictorial reintegration (2006) has restored the original aspect to the work and has brought to light the signature and the date (Morelli 1870).

The bronze table, with a marble top with a geometric kaleidoscope motif, was donated to King Francesco I (Naples 1777-1830) by Queen Isabella on 4 October 1827, for his birthday.

Along the upper edge, the work is decorated with eleven polychrome marble medallions which replace the documented ones, with portraits of the royal family; while on the lateral edge, between motifs of shells and seahorses, there were as many medallions with the 'Views of Pompeii', decorations still recorded in the inventory of 1907, but removed as early as 1950. The bronze supports depict telamons on lion's paws that crush tortoises.

The table originally adorned the King's Bedroom in the Royal Palace of Portici and is inspired in its conformation by the excavated marble supports that support petrified wooden floors; in fact, once upon a time its bronze supports were considered precisely Herculaneum finds.

In the private collection there is a series of eleven miniatures, enamel on porcelain, with frames depicting Maria Isabella di Borbone, wife of Francis I, and the first ten of their children. The decoration was probably carried out by Raffaele Giovine and it is clearly a royal commission with the purpose of adornment of a piece of furniture, such as the table in question, of which the missing medallions could constitute.

This tray belongs to the service of the ancient 'Vasella' of the Royal Palace and was intended for the luxury of the table. On it, in fact, no food was prepared but decorative elements such as baskets of flowers, sugared almonds and candelabra were placed which, reflecting in the mirrors, gave greater brightness to the table, with a scenographic effect of considerable splendor.

The dessert-plateau, in five modular pieces, is supported by pairs of lion's paw feet and, again under the base, by invisible swiveling wheels for easy movement on the table. A laurel frieze that runs along the entire perimeter is interrupted by facing figures of pairs of bacchantes in the act of placing bunches of grapes in cups and by pairs of ephebes pouring wine into jugs.

Of Empire style, it has close formal analogies with another centerpiece exhibited at the Marmottan Museum in Paris, made by Thomire and datable to 1810-1814, which belonged to Luciano Bonaparte.

The work, in addition to being a piece of furniture of precious artistic value, can be considered a remarkable technological work of the eighteenth century; it is a writing desk with an extendable top, equipped with a lectern with a rotating system of bookshelves.

The rotating lectern, which typologically refers to the Nordic medieval tradition, belonged to the Library of Queen Maria Carolina of Austria, and documents the presence in Naples of foreign artists and artisans who gravitated around the Court, importing and disseminating craft techniques and a variety of models. The signature 'Giovanni / Uldrich - Year 1792', shown on the gilt bronze plaques of the support surface, points towards an Austrian or German origin of the craftsman, who is also active as a piano maker.

The work is influenced by the neoclassical taste that gives the structural elements the shape of the architectural orders: the supporting columns of the large central wheel assume Doric shapes and the capitals rigorous classical lines. On one side of the table top, also of classic shapes, a metal crank allows the movement of a sort of 'mill' with two wheels, to which eight shelves-lecterns are fixed with adjustable brass hinges. , which allow the simultaneous reading of multiple texts.

The watch is among the oldest and most precious in the Royal Palace collection, having been made by Thuret, a watchmaker at the court of France and the Paris Observatory and collaborator of the Dutch physicist Christian Huygens, who was the first to introduce watchmaking the Galilean invention of the pendulum.

The depiction of the myth of Atlas was often used in statuary watches. Atlas, brother of Prometheus and Epimetheus, participated in the struggle between Giants and Gods. Defeated, he was condemned by Zeus to hold the vault of heaven on his shoulders. The bronze artist has depicted the moment in which Atlas, having received the globe on his shoulders, is settling it, while looking for a support on a rock that could act as a seat.

The globe, at the height of the equator, is crossed by a porcelain band that turns from left to right with large Roman numerals. The sun with its rays marks the hours.

The base depicts the symbols of Hercules: the lion skin, on which the signature, the club and the quiver are engraved. The myth of Hercules is linked to that of Atlas, and indicative of the origin of the clock from the Farnese House, which was adorned with Herculean symbols.

Behind the ancient private room of Maria Amalia of Saxony (room XIV), wife of Charles of Bourbon, opens the alcove of Maria Amalia, to be imagined as a large niche opening onto the Chamber, where the queen's bed was placed.

When in the nineteenth century the houses of the sovereigns were moved to the second floor, the ceiling of the Alcova was covered with a neoclassical decoration of frames, palmettes and gilded papier-mâché spirals on a white background, around a central rose window.

The fresco brought to light is a documented work of Nicola Maria Rossi (1690-1758), who according to documents was paid in 1739 five hundred ducats to paint the Queen in fresco in the Alcove of SM the Queen "a wish for a very happy offspring".

In the center we see La Notte, with the dark mantle, which protects the sleeper; Minerva - with the spear piercing the clouds - also smiling and bending downwards, royal protector of Fertility and a female figure who welcomes a nest with two white doves in her bosom. On the left the chariot of Aurora, indicating The Day and the god Harpocrates, depicted as a sculpture, alluding to silence

This extraordinary Neapolitan Baroque masterpiece was built between 1672 and 1691 for the church of Santa Teresa degli Studi. The altar was moved to the Royal Palace in 1808, following the suppression of ecclesiastical bodies - by the French government of Giuseppe Bonaparte - with which the religious property was confiscated by the State.

The altar is characterized by gilded copper ornaments with precious semiprecious stone covering (agate, jasper, lapis lazuli, amethyst, onyx, malachite), set to create perspective designs. In the frontal (the central panel) and in the lateral doors the architectural arrangement of the whole creates the image of a temple with pillars, niches and balustrades. In the vanishing point of the scenographic central perspective, Santa Teresa is represented, to whom the altar is dedicated.

In the ciborium there is a panel of semi-precious stones inlaid on a black Belgian background, made by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence in 1772, a gift from Cosimo III to the Teresian Fathers.

The altar was saved from the bombs of 14 August 1943 thanks to an emergency protection put in place during the war. A structure of wooden boards completely covered with sandbags managed to protect the work when it was hit by the collapse of the vault of the chapel.

The Royal Palace Nativity Scene consists of 210 figures, hand made between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Each figure, the so-called "triplet", of 35-40 centimeters, is made up of tow and wire, has painted wooden limbs, a face and hands in terracotta and eyes in crystal, all to give the figures a highly likely appearance.

In the imposing staging we can identify the three essential moments of the "sacred representation": the Nativity, the Announcement to the Shepherds and the Tavern. The Nativity is placed high up, among the ruins of an ancient temple, to symbolize the victory of Christianity over paganism, but also to renew the taste for the archaeological discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii; in the center, an angel announces to the shepherds the imminent birth of the Savior; finally, on the right, a table set with rich diners acts as a proscenium to the cellar, full of all sorts of foods typical of Neapolitan cuisine. Many important sculptors in the eighteenth century tried their hand at the crib art, among these, Giuseppe Sammartino, the author of the Veiled Christ, to whom the so-called Rinascante woman is attributed, adorned with coral earrings and necklace, sitting at the table of the inn, in a dress in red and gold velvet with green silk skirt.

The model, coming from the Royal Palace of Caserta, documents the architectural conformation of the Royal Palace at the beginning of the nineteenth century, before the massive restorations commissioned by Ferdinand II. It is configured as a model for transformation design studies and preparatory, probably, to the first draft of the Great Project by Antonio Niccolini to which the artefact, datable to 1811, refers.

The original block of the Old and New Palaces is contrasted by the bulk of the eighteenth-century "Braccio Nuovo" which, in line with the main courtyard, closes the south facade: here was the apartment of Carolina Murat with access from a new staircase to four stretches, of which the compartment can be glimpsed, and connected to the terrace whose extension is not reproduced in the model. Inside is represented the Queen's Theater, later transformed by Gaetano Genovese into a Ballroom, in which reproductions of painted sets, actually performed by Niccolini, are visible. The hanging garden connects the uneven buildings of the southern front, among which the seventeenth-century pavilion of the Belvedere stands out. The passage between the courtyard of the Belvedere and that of the carriages takes place through a small loggia on pillars, while the original perspective connections of the fontanian project are now reduced to small openings between the courtyards.

The decoration of the pavilion vault of the first antechamber is part of the decorative cycle of the royal apartments executed between 1737 and 1738 for the wedding of Charles and Maria Amalia of Bourbon.

The composition inserts the large central scene above an illusionistic painted architectural system, which expands the spatiality of the environment as it dizzily framed from below, created by Vincenzo Re, set designer of the Court and of the San Carlo Theater, specializing in similar decorative interventions at the main royal residences, such as in the Royal Palace of Portici.ì

The scene in the center of the ribbed vault was painted with an oil-on-plaster technique, which dries faster than the fresco, given the short delivery times of the work. De Mura devised a composition that illusionistically expands on the quadrature, in which the coats of arms of the Bourbons and Saxony held by the Royal Geniuses and positioned under the crown are represented in the center, alluding to the royal wedding. On the left side, the Allegories of the Virtues of Charles (Fortitude, Justice, Clemency or Peace, Magnanimity) and on the right side the Allegories with the Virtues of Maria Amalia (Fidelity, Grandeur or Valor, Prudence, Beauty); below, Hymenaeus chasing away Fury and Malice.

The tapestry is part of a series dedicated to the four elements (the Allegory of Air, positioned on the opposite wall and the Allegories of Earth and Water, exhibited in the Hall of the Ambassadors), made at the French royal factories of Gobelins and celebratory of the Sun King (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 5 September 1638 - Versailles, 1 September 1715). It was donated to the Apostolic Nuncio at the Neapolitan court in 1719.

In the foreground on the left in the Tapestry with Fire, high heddle fabric (vertical frame), Vulcan and the Cyclops, in front of a cave, are intent on forging weapons and tools on the anvil, while in the background Mount Etna is erupting . Jupiter, with Venus and Cupid, dominates the clouds and carries a shield with the figures of King Louis XIV. Magis ipso fulmine terret (terrifies more than lightning itself) is the motto on the shield. In the frame, weapons, tools, metal vases, at the top the coat of arms of the Sun King, and at the bottom an inscription praising him.

The work portrays, at a young age, Maria Carolina, daughter of Francesco di Borbone and Maria Clementina of Austria, born in the Royal Palace of Caserta in 1798 and married in 1816 to Carlo Ferdinando Duke of Berry, second son of the future Charles X of France, with a ceremony that took place right in the Palatine Chapel of the Royal Palace of Naples.

The base of the sculpture, in bleu de roi porcelain, with gilded decorations, bears the monogram of the Neapolitan princess: “MC” intertwined and subjected to a ducal crown; while under the left arm the “D. DENUELLE / A PARIS ".

Of elegant workmanship are the dress and the elaborate hairstyle, particularly noticeable in the direction of the work, where a long braid turns several times in a serpentine on the top of the head, crossing with a band adorned with gems and beads.

The porcelain can be dated between 1824 and 1828, years in which the Princess, due to the lack of children of King Louis XVIII, who died in 24, embodied the hope of a legitimate heir for the last Bourbons of France, having given born in 1820 Henry, Count of Chambord.

In Roman mythology, of Greek origin, Proserpina daughter of Ceres is kidnapped by Pluto while collecting flowers in a meadow, on the slopes of Etna, and taken to the Underworld. In the central scene of the tapestry we see the girl grabbed by Pluto and dragged on a golden chariot towards the heart of the Earth, which opens up in the flames under the legs of a white horse.

In the rich border above, the Phoenix, a magical bird that rises from its ashes, and the Salamander, which resists the flames, and is also a symbol of Justice, are depicted.

The tapestry is intended to represent the allegory of Fire: in fact it was commissioned in 1762 to complete a vestment on the theme of the Four Elements - Air Water Earth Fire - begun as early as 1739 by the Reale Arazzeria di S. Carlo alle Mortelle, under the direction of Domenico Del Rosso.

The Rape of Proserpina was made with the advice of Luigi Vanvitelli, who chose as the author of the cartoon Gerolamo Starace Franchis, a Solimenesque painter who had painted the vault of the Staircase of the Royal Palace of Caserta.

From a technical and stylistic point of view, this work represents a turning point in the activity of the Manufacture, for the use of the high heddle technique, with vertical looms, introduced by Pietro Duranti, and for the role assigned to the figurative aspects, for which, rather than recovering images from prints or repertoires, oil cartoons were commissioned to the best artists of the time.

The only official portrait of the Prince of Naples, future King Vittorio Emanuele III, permanently exhibited in the path of the Royal Palace.

The heir to the throne of the House of Savoy, son of Margherita and Umberto I, is depicted at the age of five on a terrace that opens onto a typical view of the Neapolitan city with the steaming Vesuvius in the background. This traditional representation of the Neapolitan imago urbis becomes a constant in the iconography of the prince, in order to underline his strong political and emotional bond with the city where he was born in 1869.

The boy, with his hair combed "a la Umberto", ie with a short cut inspired by that of his father, and with a frowning expression, wears a dark blue velvet formal dress, with elegant embroidery at the cuffs, neck and knees. In the fashion of the renaissance they also seem to recall the black socks and shoes with decorations on the toe. On the table, covered by a cloth with a Savoy shield, are placed a globe and a map of the United Italy, indicating the prince's studies.

It will be Vittorio Emanuele III who will sell the Royal Palace of Naples to the State Property in 1919.

The painting, coming from the Farnese collection, was previously part of the assets of the Sanseverino family of Parma who, in 1612, were sentenced to death and confiscation of their assets for a conspiracy against Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza.

During the Neapolitan revolutionary uprisings of 1799, the panel appears in the list of works seized by the French. Recovered by the Bourbon troops, it was transferred to the Royal Palace of Francavilla in Chiaia (current Cellammare palace). In 1874 it was inventoried in the Royal Palace.

The painting of the Royal Palace is one of the many versions of the subject of the “misers” made by the artist. Among the most famous are those of the Prado (1538), of Munich, Warsaw, and that of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

More than a portrait, the painting can be defined as a kind of scene of moral content, in which two tax collectors, or rather, a treasurer and his employee, the tax collector, are portrayed, showing an opposite attitude towards money that they administer: one serious and objective, the other rapacious in physiognomy and gesture. The author, as can be seen in the work, was a lover of curious and bizarre details, and was the creator of a series of portraits of characters at work, represented at the limit of the caricature.

Charles Clay's Organ Clock, dated 1730, is the most important and ancient element of the collection of clocks in the Royal Palace of Naples.

The Palazzo Reale machine has a shrine-shaped case, in perforated silver, with a glass door, surmounted by an urn with eight pine cones on the sides. The dial bears the hours marked with Roman numerals, the minutes, every five, with Arabic numerals and the half hours with small stylized lilies. The two charging holes are also evident. The front face of the case is in copper painted in oil with the application of bas-reliefs and high-reliefs in silver that outline the scenography of a temple, at the top of which a concert of celestial musicians with moving limbs is depicted.

The clock is a pendulum clock, while inside the case the parts of the mechanical organ, made up of 51 pipes, are supported by a frame. Georg Friedrich Händel was a regular collaborator of Clay and he was responsible for the music programmed on the organ's cylinder. These are five adaptations of passages taken from works by Handel performed in London between 1727 and 1729 (Lothair, Siroe king of Persia and Richard the First king of England) and five pieces, not yet identified, probably composed especially for Clay.

The painting portrays the return to Naples of Ferdinand I of Bourbon which took place on June 17, 1815 after about ten years of exile in Palermo, due to the domination of the Napoleonids.

The facade of the Royal Palace dominates the scene with the Bourbon flag waving on the clock, while the festive court watches from the balconies the military parade that accompanies the king's entrance into Largo di Palazzo. On the ground floor of the monumental building we note the absence of the statues that currently adorn it. In fact, these were placed only in the Savoy period, in 1889, inside the niches created by Luigi Vanvitelli in the mid-18th century when, for static reasons, the architect alternately walled up the arches of what was originally a continuous portico.

The first floor is dominated by the crowds who have come to watch the event, lined up behind the king's guard, with the officers carrying myrtle branches on the bayonets.

In the background of the work you can admire the still erigenda Foresteria Borbonica (seat of the Prefecture since 1861), while on the left you can see the shapes of a monumental ephemeral scenographic structure embellished with a fountain and with the statue of Ferdinand I as an ancient Roman, by Antonio Canova, currently at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

The white marble fireplace, in neoclassical style, has a richly carved frieze, supported by two pairs of fluted columns, surmounted by composite capitals. The mouth of the fireplace is framed by a frame with plant racemes.

The frieze has a bas-relief decoration with military trophies on the sides in accordance with the decorative theme of the eighteenth-century vault and, in the center, a reproduction of the mosaic depicting the "Battle of Issus", found in Pompeii and now exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. .

The revival of the archaeological find testifies to the interest of the Bourbons for the antiquities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, whose excavations were started by King Charles. The mosaic, of large proportions (582x313 cm), dating back to about 100 BC, was found on 24 October 1831 in the house of the Faun, in the pavement of the exedra that separates the two peristyles of the domus. The modernization works of the Royal Palace, started in 1838, are therefore inspired by the discoveries of contemporary excavations.

The mosaic depicts the famous battle of Alexander the Great against Darius III of Persia, which took place in Issus (Turkey) in 333 BC, which ended with the defeat of the Persian army. As in the mosaic, the frieze of the Royal Palace shows the Macedonian leader (today headless) on horseback, in the act of chasing the Persian emperor on the chariot, but facing the enemy with his spear pointed. Between the two protagonists, a tangle of spears, soldiers and horses, framed by arboreal wings.