The Charterhouse of San Martino was founded in 1325 by Charles d’Anjou, Duca di Calabria, on the crest of the hill that dominates the whole Bay of Naples. The spectacular construction, built according to the architectonic principles of the Carthusian order, was the work of Tino di Camaino and Attanasio Primario.
Down the ages this religious house engaged the most prominent artists, including the painters Lanfranco, Ribera, Battistello Caracciolo and Luca Giordano, and the sculptors Cosimo Fanzago, Giuseppe Sanmartino and Domenico Antonio Vaccaro. In the second half of the 19th century the complex was designated as a museum, and it underwent radical restructuring. Classed as a National Monument in 1866, its first director, Giuseppe Fiorelli, decided it should commemorate the history of the city and the Kingdom of Naples. It thus accumulated all the most disparate materials recording the history of Naples and its artistic achievements. This heritage was increased thanks to the donations of organizations and private benefactors. The riches of its art works and its matchless position have made this former monastery a favourite haunt for men of letters, scholars and travellers.
The site as you see it today, following an exemplary architectonic restoration, gives an accurate impression of the religious house and its original layout. The museum visit combines exhibits recounting the history of Naples and the Charterhouse itself with the enchanting panorama stretched out below you, glimpsed from the arcades, vantage points and the gardens.
Museo di San Martino
Largo San Martino, 5 - 80129 - Napoli
Tel.e Fax: 0039.081.5781769;
e-mail sanmartino.artina@arti.beniculturali.it
Opening hours every day except Wednesdays, from 8.30 to 19.30
The splendid nineteenth century residence of the Acton family was designed in 1826 by Pietro Valente. It was conceived as an English domus standing amidst a garden in the Romantic style, mixing Pompeian elements with neo-classical and neo-Palladian features. In 1841 it was purchased by the Rothschilds, the celebrated family of Swiss bankers who acted for the Bourbons in Naples, and in 1867 it passed to the family of Pignatelli Cortes d'Aragona. The building is laid out on three floors around the splendid neo-Doric veranda with its monumental fluted columns. The reception rooms open off the garden, with a circular vestibule and a succession of lavish salons. Then there is a spacious ballroom, with a serliano screne separating it from the music room, dining room and study, whose walls are clad in leather with embossed gilt motifs. The oval salottino decorated with neo-Pompeian frescoes is a particularly notable feature. On the upper floor, once the private living quarters, a prestigious selection from the collection of paintings and drawings owned by Sanpaolo-Banco di Napoli has been on public view for the last few years. The basement, formerly the region ‘below stairs’, has been refurbished to create a venue for art exhibitions. In 1952 Princess Rosina Pignatelli donated the villa to the Italian State together with all the furnishings, thus endowing Naples with its only, highly prestigious house-museum.
Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes
Riviera di Chiaia 200, 80121 - Napoli
Tel.e fax: +39.081.669675; +39.081.7612356
e-mail: pignatelli.artina@arti.beniculturali.it
Opening hours every day except Tuesdays, from 8.30 to 14.00
In 1817 Ferdinando di Borbone purchased land with a villa from Cristoforo Saliceti, who had served under Murat as Minister for the Police. The King had chosen this site as a summer residence for his morganatic wife, Lucia Migliaccio di Partanna, Duchess of Floridia, whom he had married in Sicily in 1814, three months after the death of the Queen Maria Carolina. The property featured a small “casino” or pleasure house (now the Museum) and a “coffee house” (now Villa Lucia). Between 1817 and1819 the architect Antonio Niccolini gave it a thorough facelift, restyling the casino in the neoclassical taste and laying out the gardens in the fashionable “English style”. He added an open-air theatre, a tempietto in the Ionic style, greenhouses and grottoes to house exotic animals, and these features, still extant, conjure up the property’s original ‘picturesque’ spirit. After the death of the Duchess the buildings and Park underwent a series of transformations. The Villa was bought by the State in 1916 and designated as a museum in 1924 to house the collection of the Duca di Martina.
The Duca di Martina Museum in Villa Floridiana contains one of the most important Italian collections of the decorative arts. It has over six thousand objects, originating in both the West and the East and dating from the 12th to the 19th centuries; the ceramic ware constitutes the lion’s share of the collection. The Museum occupies three floors: on the ground floor there are artefacts in ivory, enamel and bronze from medieval times, majolica ware from the Renaissance and Baroque eras and Murano glass produced in the 15th-18th centuries; on the first floor there is the collection of 18th century European porcelain ware, principally from the manufactories of Meissen, Naples and Capodimonte; and in the basement the section of oriental decorative art has recently been reopened, including the remarkable collection of Chinese porcelain from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) periods.
Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina
Villa Floridiana - via Cimarosa 77
via Aniello Falcone 171, 80127 - Napoli
Tel.e fax: 0039.081.5788418
e-mail: martina.artina@arti.beniculturali.it
Opening hours every day except Tuesdays, from 8.30 to 14.00
The enormous bulk of this Castle, stretched out over the brow of the hill, is one of the classic sights of Naples. The six-pointed star structure in rugged tuff stone we see today was created in the years 1537 - 1547. As the inscription above the entrance gate records, it was the work of Pedro Luis Escrivá di Valenza, military architect to the Spanish Viceroy Don Pedro de Toledo.
Since 1982 this complex has been assigned to the Soprintendenza per il Polo Museale Napoletano. The upper floor of the castle gaol houses the “Bruno Molajoli” library of art history and photographic archive. The Castle is the headquarters of the Soprintendenza and centre of documentation for the artistic heritage of Campania. The lofty spaces of the ambulatories and upper gaol are used for exhibitions of art both past and present of international standing.
Castel Sant'Elmo
Via Tito Angelini, 22
80129 - Napoli
Tel. +39.081.2294401
Fax +39.081.2294498
e-mail: santelmo.artina@arti.beniculturali.it
Opening hours every day except Wednesdays, from 8.30 to 19.30
