Museum of Capodimonte, Naples 🏛🖼🇮🇹

The Museum of Capodimonte is an art museum located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a former royal palace used by the Bourbon dynasty as their summer residence in Naples. The museum features a magnificent collection of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works from other Italian schools of painting, and some important ancient Roman sculptures. Inaugurated in 1957, it is now one of the largest museums in Italy, with a big section dedicated to the ceramics, which take their specific name from this royal palace.

This royal collection has been built over the centuries according to the art taste of the reigning sovereign. The result is quite eclectic, with some preference being given to artists from the Neapolitan school of arts and religious subjects. This Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio is an example of painting inspired by religious theme but quite controversial in their artistic expression, Caravaggio was a master of depicting dramatic light and shadows and this masterpiece uses beams of light to emphasise the divine presence of Christ in contrast to the abyss of darkness around him.

Apart from commissioning grandiose buildings, the Bourbons were also avid art collectors, at the very least to provide interior decorations for the palaces they were erecting. In this summer palace, just up the main hill in Naples, is now hosted a big portion of the royal collection of the Bourbons. This includes some major artworks from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, by painters from all over Europe.

Some paintings in the collection are quite unsustainable, like this double portrait by Maso da San Friano (1556). Here a young man dressed in fashion of the time examines the architectural plans of a church. An older man, dressed in more modest clothes, appears behind the young man and it almost seems to surprise him. He approaches the measuring compass of the young man as if he wanted to teach a lesson or correct an error.