The images in this gallery are from the sumptuous eighteenth century Royal Palace of Caserta or Reggia di Caserta, which is Italy's most magnificent Palace and its immense park is one of the most dazzling and grandiose in Europe. It is UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Palace or Palazzo Reale was built at the behest of Charles III of Bourbon and was intended to be the pride of the Bourbon monarchy and to be so beautiful as to rival and even overshadow Versailles. Designed by Luigi...
more »The images in this gallery are from the sumptuous eighteenth century Royal Palace of Caserta or Reggia di Caserta, which is Italy's most magnificent Palace and its immense park is one of the most dazzling and grandiose in Europe. It is UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Palace or Palazzo Reale was built at the behest of Charles III of Bourbon and was intended to be the pride of the Bourbon monarchy and to be so beautiful as to rival and even overshadow Versailles. Designed by Luigi Vanvitelli, southern Italy's greatest architect, the construction of the Palace begun in 1752 and was completed in 1774. The Baroque Palace consists of five storeys, 43 staircases, 1,790 windows and 1,200 rooms all arranged around four courtyards.
The royal park, also designed to rival the gardens of Versailles, stretches for 3 kilometres across the park in a straight line from behind the Royal Palace, along an immense avenue lined by narrow lawns and punctuated by stepped cascades, ponds, groups of statues and fountains with mythological themes and finally ending up at the base of the great cascade, a waterfall some 75 metres high which tumbles into the basin of Diana and Actaeon.
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