A Jacobite Gazetteer - Italy

Caserta - Palazzo Reale

The town of Caserta is located 35 km north of the city of Naples; it is most famous for the palace (Reggia) which was formerly the summer residence of the royal family of the Two Sicilies.

Exterior

In 1801 King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Sicily (later King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies) invited King Charles Emanuel IV of Sardinia (later King Charles IV) to live in the palace with his wife, but they stayed only a few months.

Princess Maria Cristina (youngest daughter of King Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia, later King Victor and sister of Queen Mary III and II) was the wife of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies; she often resided at Caserta and died there in 1836.

In the palace there are a number of items which relate to Maria Cristina or to her parents King Victor and Queen Maria Teresa.

The first room of the royal apartments is the Sala degli Alabardieri. At the sides of the room are four tables each holding a bust of a queen of the Two Sicilies; among these is a marble bust of Maria Cristina. ¹ There is another bust of Maria Cristina in the palace; this one is in plaster and is 85 cm high. ² Also hanging in the palace is an oil portrait of Maria Cristina. ³

Plaster bust of Queen Maria Cristina

Oil portrait of Queen Maria Cristina

In the wall between the Camera da Letto and the Stanza da lavoro della Regina, Maria Cristina had built a tiny chapel for private prayer (it is not much more than just a kneeler enclosed in the wall). ⁴

In the first reading room of the Biblioteca Palatina is a portrait of King Victor and also a portrait of his wife Queen Maria Teresa. ⁵

Notes

¹ "Palazzo Reale", http://www.campaniafelix.it/caserta/palazzo_reale.htm.

²"Ritratti di Famigilia", http://www.sanleucionline.it/borbone/ritratti.htm

³ Gian Marco Jacobitti and Anna Maria Romano, Il Palazzo Reale di Caserta (Napoli: Electa, 1994), 94. The portrait measures 91 cm X 74 cm.

⁴ "Palazzo Reale", http://www.campaniafelix.it/caserta/palazzo_reale.htm.

⁵ "Biblioteca - Caserta", http://www.one-click.net/caserta/presentazione/appartamenti/app_vecchio/biblioteca.htm, reprinted from Antonio Marotta, La Reggia e le Fontane di Caserta: Guida per i Visitatori (Caserta: Russo).