The Royal Palace of Caserta

The Royal Palace of Caserta was built in 18th century by the king Carlo di Borbone, who commissioned the great work to the architect Luigi Vanvitelli. The king was inspired by the magnificent palace of Versailles in France, built by the king Luigi 14th a short time before.
The palace is in baroque style and to enter it you need to walk up a thirty-four steps staircase. After it, you have two choices: right side or left side. On the right side you find the ” Cappella Palatina” inspired by Versailles but partially destroyed during the second world war. On the left side you can admire a large complex of 1200 rooms and 1742 windows. Just imagine that all this was just for one family! Not for a normal family but a royal one. To understand the grandeur and magnificence of the palace it is sufficient to describe the throne room: it was the room where the king received the foreign delegates and where he entertained his guests. It’s thirty-six meters wide and thirteen meters long, full of paintings and coats of arms of the royal families.
The large park starting from the back of the palace has two types of gardens: Italian and English. In the two gardens there are eight fountains representing mythological figures, animals and scenes of everyday life. In the Italian garden area there is a big fish tank, that was also used like place where the king’s son played a naval battle. The English garden was built by Queen Maria Carolina d’Asburgo Lorena and contains many plants imported from England. It was looked after by the German-born botanist and nurseryman John Graefer.
The palace was inscribed as a world heritage site in 1997, described in its nomination as “the swan song of the spectacular art of the Baroque, from which it adopted all the features needed to create the illusions of multidirectional space”.