Description
The large Royal Park, designed by Luigi Vanvitelli and finished by his son Carlo, helps to make the Royal Palace of Caserta a one-of-a-kind place. It covers approximately 120 hectares and extends on a length of over 3 kilometers. Its structure can be divided into three main parts, which are: the geometric one of the Giardino all’Italiana, with large lawns and square flowerbeds that are alternated with alleys and water jets; the Bosco Vecchio, which is the oldest part of the garden; and the luxuriant English Garden commissioned by Queen Maria Carolina.
The Giardino all’Italiana
Starting from the Palace, the central alley is characterized by the famous Via d’acqua. From the circular Margherita fountain, decorated with simple floral patterns, two main side paths branch off. Along the route, following the slopes of the hill, it is possible to see a scenografic series of fountains ornamented with statues that are mainly inspired by the themes of classical mythology, together with many declining basins that form just as many waterfalls. To feed the water shows of the Palace, Charles of Bourbon promoted the construction of a new aqueduct, which took from him the name of Caroline Aqueduct (Acquedotto Carolino). He commissioned the project to Luigi Vanvitelli, who created an impressive hydraulic engineering endeavor, which at the time aroused the attention throughout Europe, and that provided the Palace and the Garden of the water they needed for their fountains and basins.
The first fountain along this route is the one known as the “Fountain of the dolphins”, dominated by two dolphins and a sea monster, where the water comes out of the mouths of the three big stone fishes. Next there is the unfinished “Fountain of Aeolus”, made of Montegrande marble. According to the original project, this fountain should have had more than 50 statues depicting the winds, as it took inspiration from the “Aeneid” by Virgil, in which Aeolus unleashes the winds against Aeneas upon the request of Juno.
After a series of copious sloping basins, the route reaches the “Fountain of Ceres”, that represents the symbol of Sicily’s fertility, with the statues of the goddess and of the two rivers of the island. At last, at the end of this succession of fountains is the basin below the artificial waterfall of Mount Briano, the so-called “Bath of Diana”, where the scene depicted is divided into two important marble groups, with the waterfall flowing in between. The first part depicts Diana who, surrounded by nymphs, is surprised while leaving from her bath; the second one shows Actaeon who, having spied on the naked goddess, and having been turned into a stag by Diana herself, is going to be eaten by his own hounds.
The Bosco Vecchio
On the left side of the Via d’acqua, there is the so-called Bosco Vecchio, which is the oldest part of the Royal Park. It used to be the Renaissance garden of the Acquaviva family before the Royal Palace and Garden existed. It is here that it is possible to find both the Castelluccia and the Peschiera. The Castelluccia used to be a sixteenth-century tower, but was then transformed, when it was rebuilt in 1769, in a miniature fortress planned for simulated military drills. Going north, a short distance away from the Castelluccia, lies the Peschiera Grande, a vast artificial lake that should have hosted the naval battle drills of Ferdinand IV. At the centre of the lake lies a small island, embellished with a circular temple.
The English Garden
At last, to the right of the monumental Fountain of Diana and Actaeon, lies the large English Garden, requested by Queen Maria Carolina, convinced by the English Minister in Naples, Lord Hamilton, to compete with her sister Marie Antoinette of France in order to overshadow the Petit Trianon at Versailles. It was realized by the botanist Andrew Graefer who, in 1782, started the work in the area near the Grand Cascade, where the sloping land towards the South lends itself to the cultivation of exotic species. The English Garden covers in total an area of more than 24 hectares and can be considered a variant of the orderly and geometric Italian Style Garden.
The garden offers a series of suggestive places with strong references to the models of the time, as for example: the Cryptoporticus, which is a mock semi-circular nymphaeum decorated with the statues coming from the excavations of Pompeii and from the Farnese collection; the small pond in the Bath of Venus, that gets its name from the statue that, sculpted by Tommaso Solari in Carrara marbles, portrayed Venus while getting out of the water.
At the center of the pond there is a small island dominated by a mock classical temple, made with false Pompeian ruins; the English Mansion, home of the gardener Graefer, built on two floors, with a base and Doric pillars supporting a cornice decorated with medallions; and, lastly, the Aperìa, an area used as a water tank by Vanvitelli, that was later used for the breeding of bees and finally transformed into a greenhouse in 1826. Nearby, there are four greenhouses in which Graefer planted the plants he was looking for in Capri, in the Salentino area or in Palermo. Close to them are the Aquarium, intended for aquatic plants, the Rose Garden and the Botanic School.
