Reggia di Caserta: The Royal Park and English garden

The Royal Palace of Caserta, in Italian “Reggia di Caserta”, was the second residence of the royal family of the Bourbons, after that of Naples. Commissioned by Charles III of Bourbon, the direction and design was entrusted to the architect Luigi Vanvitelli whose project involved the construction of an imposing building with a rectangular shape, part of a larger project which involved the construction of a large green park.

The Royal Park covers about 3 kilometres, and even though it is incomplete, it represents one of most important and beautiful parks of Italy. It is characterized a wooded part, especially extended to the west, crossed by many avenues; and a second part, between the hills, along which there are 4 fountains which are arranged in a row and are fed by the waterfall. Water supply was achieved through a spectacular feat of hydraulic, long over forty kilometers, the Carolingian aqueduct.

The first fountain, “la Fontana di Margherita”, is a circular flowerbed fountain surrounded by hedges of flowers and sculptures of Muses; here the road forks into two ramps that lead to the “Peschiera”, a pool 427 feet long and 27wide, culminating in “La Fontana dei Delfini” characterized by two marbles dolphins from whose mouths water flows.

After a small green space there is “La Fontana di Eolo”, unfinished work because only 29 of 54 sculptures were completed. This  fountain is powered by 3 successive tanks arranged at different heights so that water, falling down from one tank to another, creates suggestive lighting effects. Finally, at the last tank there is “La Fontana Di Cerere” in Carrara marble. It is a precious sculptural group in which the center is the goodness Cerere, surrounded by nymphs, who holds in his hands a large medallion, symbol of Sicily. Follow a long lawn and a pool, where water comes from a series of twelve waterfalls and at the top there is the “Fontana di Venere e Adone” with dogs, various nymphs and the boar which will kill Adone. So we arrive to the staircase leading to the tank of Diana e Atteone where there are two groups of sculptures: Diana with her handmaids protecting her from the eyes of Atteone; and Atteone, surrounded by his own dogs which are in the act of tearing him while he is being turned into a deer by the will of Diana who wishes to punish him for having looked at her while naked.

This fountain is also situated near the mount Briano where there is a waterfall that pours into the tank of Diana and Atteone.

The English garden wasn’t in Vanvitelli’s project in fact the works for its realization began around 1778. Wanted by Queen Maria Carolina, wife of Ferdinand IV, who surely financed it with his personal patrimony, the English garden was made by Andrea Groefer, one of most important English botanists. It covers about 25 hectars and contains rare and exotic plants; the garden offers also a series of picturesque places, full of references to the models of that times: the lake of Venus characterized by Venus’s sculpture; and the Cryptoporticus, contains sculptures found in the excavations of Pompei.

The Royal Park of Caserta’s Royal Palace is one of most beautiful parks in Europe, protected by Unesco.

Russo Federica