Architectural Model Room of the Royal Palace of Caserta

The original projects, and the model of the project for the Royal Palace and its Park

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Italo Treno ticket banner to get to the Royal Palace of Caserta, Naples, Sorrento and the Campania region

Description

The center of the Hall of Models is occupied by the model of the central part of the facade of the Royal Palace of Caserta. It is one of the many models that Vanvitelli had the cabinetmaker Antonio Rosz (fl. 1751 – before 1806) make – often in collaboration with artists of Teutonic origin such as Lener, Vener, Fletter, Chelbel, Poel, Majer, Fait, Cherches , Altel – to offer the sovereign, Charles of Bourbon, a three-dimensional and scaled vision of the future architecture of the Palazzo. In this case Vanvitelli’s intent – we are in 1759 and the architect assumed he had to follow Charles to Madrid who would soon become ruler of Spain – was also to leave a valid working tool to whoever would replace it on the construction site of Caserta. On the walls of the room are exhibited the surviving sketches – by the hand of Valerio Villareale (Palermo, 1773 – ibid, 1854) and Domenico Masucci (Naples, ca. 1772 – ?) – of the stucco reliefs on the walls of the rooms of Mars and Astrea. On the walls, again, a series of drawings related to the planning of the Reggia by Luigi Vanvitelli and his son Carlo, who, after his death (1773), directed the works of the Real Palazzo. In the room there are also five bronze sculptures by Francesco (Rome, 1749 – ibid, 1819) and Luigi (Rome, 1780 – ibid, 1852) Righetti, champions of international Neoclassicism and finally the group in gilded stucco by Tito Angelini ( Naples, 1804 – therein, 1778) depicting Parthenope as a personification of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies crowning the Genius of the Arts.

The model of the facade of the Reggia

The room houses a series of wooden models, made by court workers, relating to some important rooms of the Palace. These are the models made according to the indications of the architect Antonio de Simone (Naples, 1759 – ibid, 1822) and datable to 1813:

the first depicts «three walls of the first reception room», known as the room of Mars,
the second represents «two walls of the second reception room», known as the Astrea room, two environments of decided neoclassical taste and of international value also for the intervention in the design phase of artists of the caliber of the architect Etienne-Cherubin Leconte and Konrad Heinrich Schweickle, sculptor.

Also exhibited here are:

the two models depicting the throne room of the Reggia, one made to a design by Pietro Bianchi and datable to 1829 and the other – probably corresponding to the definitive design made by Gaetano Genovese starting from 1838 and completed by 1845 – datable to 1843 – 45.
It documents the activity of Carlo Vanvitelli (Naples 1739 – therein, 1821) in Caserta, in particular that relating to the redesign of the Parco della Reggia, a model depicting the Aeolus Fountain created by Rosz and his assistants in 1777.
On the walls of the room, a series of drawings – depicting both the Royal Palace of Caserta and the so-called “Bridges of the Valley” – belonging to the Declaration of drawings by Luigi Vanvitelli. The work, published in 1756 in Naples by the Regia Stamperia, contains the design tables for the Royal Palace of Caserta which the architect created according to the wishes of Charles of Bourbon.