Portici is located a few kilometers south of Naples. It is not a very well-known place, and it is small in size. It is delimited by a few intersecting streets that form a quadrilateral of about four square kilometers, within which about sixty thousand souls live. The population density rate is one of the highest in the world, especially if one considers that almost a third of the municipal territory is occupied by the Bourbon royal palace and its woods. In this multitude, the concentration of scholars and scientists is very high: here there are in fact the district for polymeric and composite materials engineering, the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources of the CNR, the Institute for the Study of Composite and Biomedical Materials, the Center for Research on Complex Systems with the Cresco supercomputer, the Institute for Research on Plant Genetics and that for Animal Genetics. There are also the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute for the South, the MIUR Research Center for the study and care of sea turtles and several other research institutions of the Faculty of Agriculture of the Federico II University, which still has its headquarters within the Bourbon palace.
Until the arrival of Garibaldi and the Bersaglieri, the city also housed Italy's only metalworking factory of significant importance. In Pietrarsa, at the workshops of the Royal Mechanical Pyrotechnic and Locomotive Factory, about a thousand workers were engaged in the construction of steam engines and railway carriages. However, after the trade union revolt of August 1863, brutally suppressed by the Bersaglieri's bayonets, many skilled workers were transferred north and industrial production was moved to Lombardy and Piedmont. Today, on the rocks of Pietrarsa, only the vast sheds, now a splendid Railway Museum, and the memories of lost grandeur remain.
Capuano Palace
The oldest palace in Portici no longer exists.
The history of Palazzo Capuano begins around the year one thousand, when it was built by the Galeota family, from whom it passed to the Stigliano Colonna princes. Originally, the imposing palace extended with a very long and impressive facade, up to a farmhouse that constituted the border of the village. In the period of its greatest splendor, the palace was famous both for the splendid ceilings frescoed by Belisario Corenzio, and for the tower located in the middle of the facade. Another no less important merit was the presence of abundant perennial water: through underground channels it was drawn from the nearby Dragone river, and was also distributed in the rooms and kitchens, reaching various fountains in the courtyards and gardens.
Palazzo Capuano was home to figures of the caliber of the Albanian prince Castriota Scanderberg, Queen Joanna I, and the sadly famous Queen of Naples Joanna II D'Angiò-Durazzo, about whom grim legends still circulate: to be clear, this is Queen Joanna, known as the Mad, who established the Castellanìa of Torre del Greco, Ercolano, Portici, and San Giorgio a Cremano. Donna Anna Carafa, vicereine of Naples and Duchess of Medina, was born and died in the same palace.
Well, in 1948 the mayor of the time, after having started tracing Via Libertà starting from the mountain, arrived behind the palace, which was then called "La Comune Vecchia" simply decided to "cut it", destroying gardens, fountains, staircases, pediments and frescoes by Corenzio and leaving only the central tower, abandoned and reviled, in whose garden a fountain mask is embedded in a wall, a trace of the old water features.
The Dragone river has disappeared from the city, perhaps out of shame.
The Royal Bourbon Site
A large part of the total area of the municipality of Portici is occupied by the Bourbon Royal Site of 1740, which includes, in addition to the palace, the port of Granatello, some noble dependencies, and two large woods. The palace, built as a summer hunting residence, has a very singular history: unlike all other residences of sovereigns in the world, which are always and everywhere protected by imposing walls and iron gates, this palace stands exactly and without any kind of barriers, in the middle of the road that connected the capital with the southern regions of the kingdom: the Royal Road of Calabria.
The Caudine Forks and the Eagle of Portici
Titus Livius was from Veneto, and he described the affair of the Caudine Forks more or less in this way: in 321 BC, Gavius Pontius, the general who led the Samnite warriors in the battle of the Caudine Forks, called his father, the wise Herennius Pontius, to decide the fate of the defeated Roman legionaries. Herennius advised clemency: the Roman soldiers were only humiliated by being made to pass under the forks, but then they were set free. A few centuries later, the Pontii family, completely reabsorbed into Roman civilization, in addition to owning a large villa in the capital, had one by the sea south of Naples, bordering that of the Pisones, the family of Julius Caesar's father-in-law. As Senator Pontius well knew, Caesar often came to Herculaneum to consult the largest private collection of papyri ever seen in the empire. He could see him as he showed his guests with sweeping gestures the pool his father-in-law had built on Lucius's land. And how was that enormous basin, surrounded by columns and porticoes and covered with the most precious marbles, supplied? But of course, with the water of the Dragone river, that precious trickle that flowed from the slopes of the great mountain and as if by miracle carried with it the heat of the forges of the god Vulcan. The Dragone, until a few weeks before, reached right into that villa that Lucius's grandparents had built years earlier, so that his private baths were the most coveted by all the Roman nobility. Now, however, his neighbor had diverted the course of the river, and when he, the perennial owner of the thermal river waters, had gone to old Piso to try to assert his good rights, that worm he didn't even want to name in his thoughts, without even receiving him out of respect for the neighborhood, had him thrown out by the centurions of his personal guard. But he, Lucius Pontius Aquila, descendant of the mythical Trojans of Aeneas, would make him pay for that offense and that theft.
Lucius Pontius Aquila was one of the senators who stabbed Caesar in the Senate on the Ides of March in 44 BC, and he was Pontius Pilate's great-uncle.
When many centuries later, Charles of Bourbon ordered the construction of a residence on the hill called del Salvatore in that same spot, during the excavations for the foundations of the palace, among other finds, a capital bearing the initials of Senator Pontius Aquila came to light, with the image of the raptor with outstretched wings, which would later become the symbol of the Vesuvian municipality.
During the construction of the Royal Site, Charles of Bourbon found a capital with an eagle, and that symbol was later adopted as the coat of arms by the municipality of Portici.
The Foundation of the Royal Palace
It is said that His Majesty Don Carlo, son of Philip V, King of Spain, and Elisabeth Farnese, chose the site of Portici during a storm: it seems that he was so fascinated by the cove where he had to take shelter with his vessel due to a storm while sailing in the gulf with his lady, Maria Amalia of Saxony, that he decided to have a hunting lodge built on the slopes of the volcano and enjoy the fresh sea breeze. Much more likely, it is more credible that the enlightened sovereign pulled out his checkbook and convinced the owners of the land by the sea, located on a strategically positioned hill overlooking the gulf, to move.
Marino Caracciolo, Prince of Santobono, Tommaso d'Aquino, Prince of Caramanico, and Giovanni Mascabruno, Marquis of San Raffaele, then accepted with good grace and gritted teeth, just so as not to irritate the king and also to avoid the forced expropriation of their splendid residences. The sovereign's intelligence service had in fact discovered that Caramanico's entire villa was built according to the arcane symbolism of the Rosicrucians, the ancient sect precursor of Freemasonry, founded by the disciples of Saint Mark in 46 AD.
Probably, the agents in the service of the Bourbon had also reported to their chief that Caracciolo, Caramanico, Mascabruno and Sansevero, along with other local nobles, disliked and resented the new sovereign, fearing his harsh character and his ideas, which were too progressive for that time. Probably the decision to build a royal palace precisely in Portici and precisely on the site where the most powerful secret society of the time was located, was taken by the shrewd sovereign to make it clear to those who needed to understand that his policy did not tolerate obstacles, obstructions or misunderstandings from anyone, and therefore the landing at Granatello was not as fortuitous as one might have thought.
The Unique Architecture of the Royal Palace
The headquarters of the Department of Agriculture of the Federico Secondo University is still splendid in its very particular architecture, desired by King Bourbon to emphasize the royal family's closeness to its people: it is in fact the only royal residence in the world built astride a public road, and travelers and carriages that passed, as they still do today, on the Regia Via delle Calabrie, pass right inside the royal palace.
The busy thoroughfare, on its way to Bruzio, is incorporated into the central courtyard of the palace, which envelops it with two overpasses, which in turn connect the side facing the sea with the one facing the mountain. Beneath one of the corridors that pass high above the public road, there is a true jewel that escaped the abandonment to which the marvelous construction had been destined after the conquest by the Savoys: the royal chapel, which originally was supposed to be a small court theater and in fact has its shape. It was King Charles who realized that the church was not contemplated in the project, and it took the place of the court theater by august decision. The first musician to inaugurate the monumental organ of the church was a very young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, during his stay in Portici as a guest of the Bourbons, in the summer of 1770. The young Mozart was certainly one of the most passionate visitors to the menagerie of the Royal Palace of Portici, built in the gardens of the upper wood, where for the pleasure of the king and his noble friends, lions, tigers, panthers, gazelles, kangaroos, and even an African elephant were kept in captivity.
The Gardens and Woods
Protected by the shade of holm oaks, the fern garden is one of the most evocative corners of the Botanical Garden. Not far away is a palm grove that hosts twenty-five different species and very rare specimens of palms. The structured and anthropogenic green of the historic garden contrasts with the deliberately wild appearance of the surrounding wood. The wood has a natural layout in full contrast with the invasive urbanization of the surrounding environment, and represents a living museum of spontaneous Mediterranean plant formations. The gardens and all the buildings of the palace are fed by enormous underground tanks that collect water from Vesuvian aquifers.
Mascabruno Palace and the Royal Stables
Mascabruno Palace consists of an internal courtyard limited by the building structures and surrounded by a characteristic holm oak grove, later replaced by a prairie, while the palace was renovated to be used as a royal stable. The courtyards, onto which the wide arches of the stairs leading to the upper floors opened, were used for horses and were paved with Vesuvian stones. Here the Neapolitan horse was bred, an indigenous equine breed, strong and reliable in battle, the pride of the Bourbon cavalry and famous throughout Europe.
The Prancing Horse
The history of the prancing horse dates back to the conquest of the city of Naples in 1253 by Conrad IV of Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick II. The Neapolitans strenuously resisted, entrenching themselves within the walls, and the Swabian had to open an underground passage. He entered, won, and wanted to demonstrate that he had tamed the people of Naples by placing a bit in the mouth of the statue of the Sun Steed, revered in the name of the cult of Virgil, who was considered the protector of Naples. However, the little horse remained the symbol of the city, depicted in a rampant, very wild and untamed version. This equestrian tradition was fueled in the Bourbon era, starting from the king's desire to obtain even more agile and resistant horses, by initiating a crossbreeding program at the Persano estate between Neapolitan mares and fast Turkish stallions, giving rise to the Royal Persano breed, which, crossed with Spanish stallions, became the breed of State Horses.
In 1929, Scuderia Ferrari was founded for the sports management of racing Alfa Romeos. Three years later, those racing cars displayed a shield with a prancing horse on a yellow background, identical to the emblem of the city of Naples: the driver Enzo Ferrari had received that emblem as a gift from Countess Paolina Biancoli, mother of Captain Francesco Baracca, a knight and ace of Italian aviation during the First World War. On the fuselage of his airplane, the legendary aviator had painted a black prancing horse on a white background in honor of his cavalry regiment, and his mother had invited her friend Ferrari to put that effigy on his racing cars. The foals ridden by Francesco Baracca were of the Royal Persano breed: that species, reduced to very few specimens by the Savoy Ministry of War after the Unification of Italy as a symbol of the Neapolitan dynasty, was revived only around 1900 by the same ministry, which had realized the great error committed. Baracca's famous "prancing horse", which today is the most valuable brand in the world, is therefore a superb "Bourbon" horse, which still proudly displays itself on the shields affixed to the front of the Royal Palace of Portici.
The Riding Track and Tropical Gardens
The palace garden included fishponds and plantations, organized as geometrically structured flowerbeds. Common at that time was the cultivation of pineapples, so in the gardens, in addition to the coffeehouses of which only ruins remain, there were pineapple stoves, i.e., greenhouses for tropical plants. Attached to the stables is the covered riding track, extending over an area of 600 square meters and second in size only to that of Schönbrunn Palace. However, the Austrian riding track was inaugurated only three years after that of Portici, on the occasion of the visit of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina to Vienna. The Austrian emperor, visiting his sister, was so admired by the Bourbon works that he had drawings of the Portici riding track made to replicate it in Austria.
Villa D'Elboeuf
The seaside villa of the Austrian Empire's ambassador, Prince Maurice D'Elboeuf of Lorraine, was used as an annex for the crown's august guests and for sea bathing. Built in 1711 to a design by Sanfelice, the villa, covering approximately 4,000 square meters, admirably exploited its splendid natural setting with large elliptical outdoor staircases and terraces at different levels. The villa was known for the statues and ancient objects it housed, which the prince had found during excavations that, systematically continued by Charles and the Herculaneum Academy, were to bring ancient Herculaneum to light. With these purchases, the king secured a vast area of land that was fenced towards Vesuvius and populated with game to satisfy his passion for hunting, while on the sea he organized large fish farms. Here Caroline Bonaparte, wife of Joachim Murat, had what can be considered the first Italian bathing establishment built, naturally for her exclusive use.
Italy's First Railway and Zuppa Inglese
The Naples-Portici Railway, the first stretch of railway in Italy, was inaugurated on October 3, 1839. On this date, the typical local dessert, Zuppa Inglese, is also said to have originated.
The locomotive had been built by engineer Armand Bayard de la Vingtrie in the Newcastle shipyards. On the day of the inauguration, a grand party was held at the Royal Palace of Portici, and the guest of honor for the evening was the ambassador of the Kingdom of England, Lord Robert Cornelis Napier. The succulent dessert prepared by the chef for the banquet was the favorite of the sovereign of the time, Ferdinand II: a sponge cake covered with icing. However, the delicacy was disastrously dropped by the waiter on duty when bringing it to the table. For this reason, the chef had to reassemble it in a hurry at the last moment, using a lot of imagination, pastry cream, and a little Alchermes liqueur. When King Ferdinand tasted the unusual dessert and asked about this strange, never-before-seen sweet, the embarrassed chef, with a stroke of genius, replied that it was Zuppa Inglese, created especially in homage to the guests of the evening.
10 unmissable things to do here
- The Royal Palace of Portici, free admission.
- The Royal Riding Track, free admission.
- The MUSA Museum
- The Upper Wood, with the botanical garden and the small castle, free admission.
- The Lower Wood, with the prairie, fishponds, and municipal villa, free admission.
- The Pietrarsa Railway Museum and Italy's first railway station
- Granatello Port with fish restaurants and nightlife venues
- The Sea Park: a pedestrian path of a couple of kilometers, from the Port to Pietrarsa.
- The historic center, with the Market streets and shopping streets.
- The archaeological excavations of Herculaneum and the M.A.V. Museum are a few minutes' walk away.
10 places to eat or drink
In Portici there are over fifty restaurants to choose from: specializing in typical Campanian dishes, or just fish (at the port). There are also fast food, pizzerias on every corner, some renowned sushi and other Japanese food places, a place for cat lovers (not on the menu!), some inside ancient villas by the sea and by the pool, in the railway museum, and then dozens of pub bars with all kinds of beers and cocktails... All within a few steps.
Where to stay
Excellent hotels overlooking the Sea Park are recommended, with Gulf views and secure parking, as are the many B&Bs throughout the municipality, with accommodations and prices for all tastes.
Good to know before you go
Portici is five kilometers south of Naples, reachable by highway - Bellavista exit - or by the local Circumvesuviana train - Bellavista or Via Libertà stop. The subway stops at the beautiful seaside stations of Portici or Pietrarsa, there are buses that leave from Naples Station (but there is a lot of traffic on urban roads)... At that point, you can also reach it from Naples on foot.