Reggia di Caserta e Parco Reale: orari e biglietti

When you arrive at the Royal Palace of Caserta the sight is impressive. It is no coincidence that the Royal Palace of Caserta is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with its wonderful gardens of the Royal Park. The advice is to take some time to visit both: the Royal Palace and the attached and extensive gardens.

What to see in the Royal Palace of Caserta

The history of the Royal Palace of Caserta

Commissioned by Charles of Bourbon modeled after the Versailles of Louis XIV, the Royal Palace of Caserta was designed by the architect Luigi Vanvitelli. Its construction began in 1752: the direction of the work was first passed to Carlo Vanvitelli and then continued under the guidance of other architects until 1847.

The slowdown in the work was due to the decline of interest (and funds) following the departure of Charles III: under his successor, Ferdinand IV, the court only lived in the palace during the summer season, while Ferdinand II, the last king, chose it as his preferred residence.

The Palace belonged to the crown assets of the Bourbons (except during the Napoleonic period), then of the Savoy until 1921, when it passed to the State. Currently, it houses the Superintendence for Architectural, Landscape, Historical, Artistic and Ethno-anthropological Heritage of Caserta and Benevento, the EPT of Caserta, the Society of Homeland History, the Higher School of Public Administration and the Non-commissioned Officers School of the Air Force as well as the Museum of the Opera and the Territory which collects historical-artistic documents from Caserta.

Architecture of the Royal Palace of Caserta

The building of the Royal Palace of Caserta has a rectangular plan, with four internal courtyards divided by the two central bodies of the building which intersect perpendicularly. The original project included two semicircular wings that were to embrace the huge square in front of the main facade, softening the outlook, now isolated.

The two facades – identical and facing one the parade ground, the other the park – are made of brick and travertine with a rusticated base, double row of windows and balustrade on the top floor. From the palace atrium, you enter the lower vestibule, with a view on the four courtyards that open the view to the park. The spectacular honor staircase, with a large central ramp followed by two side ramps, leads to the upper vestibule with an octagonal plan, illuminated by large windows.

Opposite is the Royal Chapel, rectangular with a semicircular apse, decorated with polychrome marbles and a barrel vault adorned with coffers and golden roses, modeled after that of Versailles. To the left of the Chapel open the Royal Apartments which include the Throne Room preceded by anterooms, the king’s apartment and the queen’s apartment.

Anterooms

The anterooms are: the Hall of the Halberdiers, the Hall of the Bodyguards and the Hall of Alexander which serves as a link between the eighteenth-century rooms and the nineteenth-century ones. From here, to the left, opens the eighteenth-century apartment and, to the right, the nineteenth-century one.

The New Apartment, made during the years of the French kingdom, is introduced by two neoclassical-style anterooms, the Hall of Mars and the Hall of Astraea, where military virtues are exalted. The Throne Room, the largest of the Royal Apartments, has Corinthian pillars on the walls while the architrave is decorated with portraits of the royal house, the work of various sculptors.

The Council Room, from which the king’s private apartment is accessed, has a vaulted ceiling frescoed by Cammarano with the theme Minerva crowning Art and Science and walls decorated with large nineteenth-century paintings; in the center, a table decorated with porcelain medallions with the popular costumes of the kingdom. Follow the Anteroom and the Bedroom of Francis II, with Empire-style mahogany furniture and gilded bronzes while the Bathroom of Francis II has a Carrara marble toilet with a granite tub adorned with lion protomes and a vault frescoed by Cammarano with Ceres.

In the first and second Anteroom of Joachim Murat and in the Bedroom are part of the furnishings from the royal residence of Portici: mahogany chests and consoles with gilded bronzes are in French empire style, as are the bed and silk-upholstered chairs bearing the monarch’s cyphers while paintings decorate the walls. The Eighteenth-century Apartment, the first to be inhabited by Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina, is preceded by four conversation rooms called Seasons Rooms from the frescoes on the vaults.

Apartments

Of the Apartment of Ferdinand I of Bourbon, the first room, the Rich Cabinet of His Majesty, is decorated with furnishings by the famous German cabinetmaker Weisweiler and gouaches by Hackert depicting royal sites.

In the Apartment of Maria Carolina, four small rooms decorated in typical rococo taste stand out; impressive is the decoration of the Workroom, with yellow satin walls framed by mirrors; through the Cabinet of Stucco you access the Cabinet for Bath Use and the Cabinet for Refreshments, with Venetian mirrors, putti, frescoes by Fischetti and a marble tub with trompe l’oeil decorations.

From the boudoir you pass into the Company Room, then the Ladies of the Court Room and finally to the two reading rooms anteroom of the Palatine Library, composed of three rooms decorated by the German painter Fugger. The Elliptical Room, originally intended for court entertainments, houses the reconstruction of the Royal Nativity Scene: from here you access the Art Gallery, a collection of works (still lifes, battle scenes, the series of the Ports of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Hackert) distributed in several rooms, some of which, the Picture Gallery, display portraits of the royals of the Bourbon dynasty.

Back rooms

In the back rooms of the Historic Apartment is the installation of the contemporary art exhibition Terrae Motus, organized by the gallerist Lucio Amelio after the 1980 earthquake with works by the greatest contemporary artists (Warhol, Hearing, Schifano, Beuys, Pistoletto).

The Theatre of the Royal Palace of Caserta

Of great importance is, finally, the Theatre, on the western side of the Palace, a scale reproduction of the San Carlo of Naples with five rows of boxes and a sumptuous royal box: the only room completed by Vanvitelli father by the will of Ferdinand IV, it was inaugurated in 1769. Along with the building, Vanvitelli conceived the surrounding Park, a splendid example of Italian garden.

Royal Park and Gardens of the Royal Palace of Caserta

The Royal Park as it stands today is only partially the realization of Luigi Vanvitelli‘s project; the work was completed by his son Carlo, who scaled down his father’s design due to lack of funds. The layout is divided into three parts.

First Part of the Royal Park

The first part of the park, immediately behind the Royal Palace, is dedicated to the parterre (a lawn with straight alleys) and includes the Old Woods (existing before the Palace) in which stands the Castelluccia, a sixteenth-century building rebuilt in 1769 in the form of a miniature fortress where the young Ferdinand IV practiced mock battles. The alleys lead to the Peschiera, an artificial lake with a small island in the center, enhanced by a circular temple.

Second Part of the Royal Park

The second part of the park, characterized by water games flowing from fountains arranged in line with the Palace, starts from the fountain “Margherita“: from two side ramps, you ascend to the Hercules bridge where the great “waterway” begins. Following the slope of the hill, water basins, superimposed pools adorned with statues alternate; two wide roads, bordered by holm oak parapets and oak groves, flank it up to the large basin, in which from the slopes of Mount Briano falls an impressive waterfall.

The first fountain you encounter is called the “Dolphins” because water flows out of the mouths of three large fish sculpted in stone. Next is the “Aeolus” fountain, a wide exedra in which numerous “caves” open simulating the home of the winds, represented by many statues of zephyrs, never completed. Then, there are seven cascading pools forming as many waterfalls and the “Ceres” fountain, symbolizing the fertility of Sicily, with statues of the goddess and the island’s two rivers. The last fountain enacts the story of “Venus and Adonis”.

In the basin below the waterfall of Mount Briano, called “Diana’s bath“, two important marble groups depict Actaeon at the moment when, transformed into a stag, he is about to be torn apart by his own dogs, and Diana, surrounded by nymphs, surprised as she emerges from the bath.

Third Part of the Royal Park

The third part is that of the English Garden, desired by Maria Carolina. It was Lord Hamilton who persuaded the queen to compete with her sister Marie Antoinette of France, who had had the Petit Trianon built at Versailles. The English botanist Andrew Graefer was then called, who in 1782 began work in the area near the great waterfall, where the sloping terrain towards the south lends itself to imaginative compositions and the cultivation of exotic species.

The garden offers a series of evocative places with profound references to the models of the time: the cryptoporticus, with statues from the Pompeii excavations and the Farnese collection; the small lake of Venus’ bath, with fake Pompeian ruins; the English casino, a two-story building with a base and Doric pillars supporting a cornice decorated with medallions, which was the home of Graefer and, finally, the apiary, an area used as a water reservoir by Vanvitelli, then used for beekeeping and finally transformed into a greenhouse in 1826.

Nearby, the four greenhouses where Graefer planted the plants he collected in Capri, in Salento or Palermo. Close are the Aquarium, intended for aquatic plants, the Rose Garden and the Botanical School.

Museum of the Works and Territory of Caserta

The Museum of the Works and Territory is housed in the underground chambers of the Royal Palace of Caserta, restored and used in full respect of the original architecture. It collects a series of objects that document and illustrate Vanvitelli’s work, the history of the Caserta area, including the archaeological finds discovered in the 1990 excavations, and the life of the Bourbon court between the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition, several other works of art kept for decades in the storages of the Campania Superintendencies have only now been returned to the public.

Very interesting are the architectural models made by the cabinetmaker Antonio Rosz and commissioned by Vanvitelli. The models, which faithfully reproduced the Royal Palace, were submitted by the architect to the opinion of Charles III.

Caserta Palace Opening Hours

The Caserta Palace is closed only on Tuesdays.

Royal Apartments

Opening 8:30 AM – 7:30 PM
Last entry 7:00 PM
Museum exit 7:25 PM

Palace Park

Opening Hours 8:30 AM

January: last entry at 3:00 PM/closing at 4:00 PM
February: last entry at 3:30 PM/closing at 4:30 PM
March: last entry at 4:00 PM/closing at 5:00 PM
From April to September: last entry at 6:00 PM/closing at 7:00 PM
October: last entry at 4:30 PM/closing at 5:30 PM
November and December: last entry at 2:30 PM/closing at 3:30 PM​

English Garden

Opening Hours 8:30 AM
January: last entry at 2:00 PM/closing at 3:00 PM
February: last entry at 2:30 PM/closing at 3:30 PM
March: last entry at 3:00 PM/closing at 4:00 PM
From April to September: last entry at 5:00 PM/closing at 6:00 PM
October: last entry at 4:00 PM/closing at 5:00 PM
November: last entry at 2:00 PM/closing at 3:00 PM
December: last entry at 1:30 PM/closing at 2:30 PM

Ticket Prices for the Royal Palace of Caserta and Royal Park

€ 14.00 Full Park+Apartments (to visit the Royal Apartments, Royal Park, and English Garden) / The ticket is limited by time slot. It will not be possible to access the Complex at a different time than the one selected during purchase.

€ 9.00 Full Park (to visit the Royal Park and English Garden)

€ 3.00 Evening Apartments (to visit the Royal Apartments. Available for purchase from 5 PM) / The ticket is limited by time slot. It will not be possible to access the Complex at a different time than the one selected during purchase.

€ 2.00 Reduced Park+Apartments EU Citizens 18-24 years old (for European Union citizens aged between 18 and 24 inclusive to visit the Royal Apartments, Royal Park, and English Garden, subject to the opening hours of the Royal Park and English Garden) / The ticket is limited by time slot. It will not be possible to access the Complex at a different time than the one selected during purchase.

Free Park+Apartments (for under 18s and entitled to concessions for visiting the Royal Park and Royal Apartments) /The ticket is limited by time slot. It will not be possible to access the Complex at a different time than the one selected during purchase.

Free Park (for under 18s and entitled to concessions for visiting the Royal Park)