Park of the Villa Floridiana al Vomero - Virtual Tour 360°

Villa Floridiana is a building of historical and artistic interest in Naples, located in the Vomero district within the homonymous park.

The complex was part of the group of buildings used as Bourbon royal residences in Campania and since 1927 it has housed the Duca di Martina National Ceramic Museum.

In June 1815 Ferdinand IV of Bourbon bought for his morganatic wife Lucia Migliaccio, Duchess of Floridia and, previously, widow of Prince Benedetto III Grifeo di Partanna, the estate of Prince Giuseppe Caracciolo di Torella, a large plot on the Vomero hill, where it stood an imposing villa which, in honor of his wife, he called Floridiana.

The purchase by the king, in 1817, of neighboring properties earned the villa a new entrance in the direction of Chiaia.

The architect Antonio Niccolini was commissioned to renovate the old building and between 1817 and 1819 he built the villa in the neoclassical style and the large park in the romantic style.

Avenues and paths were planted with greenery by the director of the Botanical Garden of Naples Friedrich Dehnhardt who adorned the park with 150 species of plants including holm oaks, pines, plane trees, palms, box trees and a rich collection of camellias.

At the end of the works, the complex included two villas, Villa Lucia and Villa Florìdia, an outdoor theater called “della Verzura”, a circular Ionic temple, fake ruins and greenhouses, all rigorously in neoclassical style.

On the death of the royal couple, the complex was inherited by the children of the duchess's first marriage.

Villa Lucia and part of the park were then sold to Count Pasquale Stanislao Mancini who made it his family residence in the Neapolitan capital.

The Fioridiana and the rest of the park were purchased in 1919 by the State, which exhibited the collection of ceramics received as a donation from Maria Spinelli di Scalea, who had inherited it from her uncle Placido di Sangro, Duke of Martina, from whom the museum takes the name.

Map: Park of the Villa Floridiana al Vomero - Virtual Tour 360°