What you see

The north façade presents a succession of 243 windows per storey across its 249-metre width, divided by pilasters in the giant order that give the building its taut vertical rhythm despite the horizontal spread. From the entrance vestibule, three identical barrel-vaulted passages lead to the octagonal central atrium, where the Grand Staircase (Scalone d'Onore, 1752–1774) rises between ramping balustrades of white Carrara marble inlaid with grey African marble. The staircase is Vanvitelli's single greatest invention: a double-ramped structure that arrives at a landing supported by 16 columns, then divides into two converging upper flights under a barrel-vaulted ceiling that seems, from below, to extend to infinity.

The garden axis is the building's true climax. From the north terrace, the eye travels 3 km along the central canal past 14 fountains to the Cascata Grande, which falls 78 metres down a hillside landscape of mythological sculptures (Diana and Actaeon; the Fountain of Ceres; the Fountain of Aeolus). The English Garden occupies the northeast corner of the park: a studied informality of winding paths, artificial ruins, a Temple of Venus, a bathing pool, and specimen trees that contrasts deliberately with the geometric perfection of the main axis. Its 1785 date makes it one of the earliest English Gardens in southern Italy.