Description of the attraction
The Royal Palace overlooks the spacious Piazza del Plebesito, named after the 1946 referendum that ended the Italian monarchy. Work on the construction of the palace began in the 1600s by Domenico Fontana. The customer was the Spanish Viceroy Don Ferranto Ruiz de Castro, who wanted to erect a residence worthy of the Spanish crown for the arrival of his overlord, Philip II. At the beginning of the 18th century, the building was expanded, and after a fire in 1837, it was recreated with neoclassical elements by Gaetano Genovese. The long façade is crowned with a clock and a belfry. In its lower floor in 1888, Vanvitelli arranged eight niches with statues of the rulers of Naples, who ruled here since 1140. These are Roger, Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Charles I of Anjou, Alphonse I of Aragon, Charles V, Charles III of Bourbon, Joachim Murat, Victor Emmanuel II.
In the interior of the palace there are 17 rooms, mostly neoclassical, empire and neo-baroque, full of art objects. Here is the Court Theater, built by G. Fugue in the second half of the 18th century, a huge chapel decorated with colorful stones, with an exhibition of church art, a giant terrace with fountains, and the National Library with the famous papyri from Herculaneum. In 1717, Tsarevich Alexei, the son of Peter I, who was taken from here to Russia for certain death, hid in this palace.
