PORTICI
The Royal Palace
In the antiquity it was possible to arrive here only in carriage, but from the 1837 the place could be reached by train of the railway Naples-Portici, that was the first in Italy. At present Portici looks altered because of chaotic building development, but looking now from the height, we can get an idea of how was this place at the time of the Bourbon, when Charles III chose it as summer residence. Under of us, in fact, like a break in the middle of to the modern constructions, there is situated, surrounded by a big park sloping down toward the sea, the Royal Palace of horseshoe form.
It was built in that point because of proximity of Ercolano - that just in those years was coming to the light - and also because the King wanted the wood become a hunting preserve. Tthe Royal Palace was projected from the same architect - Antonio Medrano - that had designed the Capodimonte Royal Palace. There worked the architects Fuga and Vanvitelli also.
The building is diveded in two parts by the "Royal Road": the inferior palace, that opens toward the sea with a monumental façade and with the two wings, and the superior palace that looks at the Vesuvius.
But Portici is not only the Royal Palace, almost all the 121 villas aligned along the coast are the authentic masterpieces as the Favorita and the Vanvitelli’s Villa Campolieto, that at present, restored, holds the biggest collection of contemporaneous art in Italy.
Actually, in the Royal Palace there is placed the Faculty of Agriculture of Naples University.
