La Raccolta, situated on the 2nd floor of Palazzo Zapata, is representative of the art known as “19th century Neapolitan” and has developed over the 120 years of social activity of the Circolo Artistico Politecnico, founded in 1888 in the home of Edoardo Dalbono by a group of professional painters and art lovers under the ancient name of “Società degli artisti”.
The Institution had as its first president Prince Giuseppe Caravita di Sirignano, to whom the Museum is dedicated. The center was also the site of the first School of Dramatic Art in Naples and the prestigious Neapolitan Academy of Chess.
The Museum occupies a vast 1600 sqm and is the result of donations from members, who intended to provide the established Association not only with a sustaining heritage, but above all to offer the public accessibility to a property that still today manages to be an eyewitness to that century which represents one of the most flourishing periods of the city of Naples.
In the splendid rooms, furnished according to the taste of 19th-century salons, are preserved pictorial and sculptural artworks that cover the chronological span from the end of the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century, with a highly valuable artistic heritage. Here, moreover, is preserved an extensive library, documentary and photographic heritage.
