The superb Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte is one of the best collections of art in the country. Its vast holding contains many important works by Campanian and international artists, as well as many curious objets d'art and fine pieces of Capodimonte porcelain.
It's surely my favorite one!
The three-storey museum is organized, not chronologically, but by collections: between them the Borgia, Farnese and Bourbon rulers amassed some superb Renaissance and Flemish works. On the first floor there are fine portraits of the Farnese pope, Paul III, by Titian, and, in the Borgia collection, an elegant Madonna and Child with Angels by Botticelli, Lippi's soft, sensitive Annunciation, and other works by Renaissance masters – Bellini's impressively coloured and composed Transfiguration, Giulio Romano's dark and powerful Madonna of the Cat and Marcello Venusti's small-scale 1549 copy of Michelangelo's Last Judgement – probably the only chance you'll get to see the painting this close up.
On the second floor there are some outstanding Italian paintings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, of which the most famous is the St Louis of Anjou by Simone Martini, a fascinating Gothic painting glowing with gold leaf. An overt work of propaganda, it depicts an enthroned Louis crowning Robert of Anjou and thereby legitimizing his rule. Elsewhere there's a delicate Annunciation by Titian from San Domenico Maggiore – and the long series of rooms finishes off in fine style with one of Caravaggio's best-known works, The Flagellation. Upstairs from there is a scattering of paintings and artworks from the twentieth century
Ticket entrance 7.50€
Guided tour with official guide can be booked to the email address fabiocomella@alice.it
Duration 1h:30 min
