Naples: Castel Nuovo

The overenthusiastic employee of the Castel Nuovo explained to me in exaggerated English that there were two options to visit this Neapolitan castle. One was to buy a regular ticket for six euros which would allow me to wander through part of the complex on my own. A much better option – in his opinion – was to go for the “whole package” for sixteen euros. This package included a tour with an English-speaking guide which would take me to the dungeons and roof terrace. As I would have to wait for an hour and a half for the next tour to start, I decided to buy the regular ticket. I believe this was a wise choice. On the Internet I read a lot of negative reviews from people who did not think that the guided tour was worth their money. The tour was described as a rush job, with hardly any additional information, in poor English, through largely uninteresting parts of the castle. On the other hand, the staff of the Castel Nuovo seem to take the guided tour very seriously. I accidentally walked into a room where the guided tour in Italian was held and actually came within an inch of being pushed out again by a heavily tattooed arm.

History

The orders to build the Castel Nuovo or “new castle” came from Charles of Anjou, who in 1266 had become King of Sicily. At the time the Kingdom of Sicily comprised virtually all of Southern Italy. As king, Charles preferred Naples over Palermo, and he turned the Campanian city into his de facto capital. That capital already had two important castles: the Castel dell’Ovo and the Castel Capuano. The former castle had roots that went back to Antiquity, but as a castle it dated from the twelfth century. It had been built by the Norman king Roger II of Sicily (1130-1154). Roger’s son William I “the Bad” (1154-1166) was responsible for the construction of the Castel Capuano, while his grandson Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1198-1250) thoroughly remodelled that castle. In 1266 Charles defeated Manfred, the last Hohenstaufen ruler, and took control of the kingdom. He wanted a new castle in Naples where he could settle his court and chose a spot close to the sea.

The construction of the Castel Nuovo started in 1279 under the direction of French architects. Three years later the castle was completed. Charles unfortunately never really got the chance to enjoy his new residence: in 1282 a large revolt broke out on Sicily and until his death in 1285 the king was mostly busy waging war. As the Castel Nuovo was the castle of the Angevin dynasty, it is also called the Maschio Angioino (Angevin citadel). Charles’ successors expanded the castle and had it embellished, with his grandson Robert the Wise (1309-1343) summoning important artists from Rome and Tuscany. And yet very little remains of the original Angevin castle. In fact, only the palace chapel or Cappella Palatina can more or less be considered original. King Alfonso V of Aragon, who was King of Sicily from 1416 until 1458 and between 1442 and 1458 King of Naples as well, launched a makeover that gave the castle a completely new appearance.

Alfonso’s triumphant entry into Naples took place on 26 February 1443. After the triumph he commissioned the Catalan architect Guillem Sagrera (ca. 1380-1456), who was from the island of Mallorca, to rebuild the Castel Nuovo. Four square towers were converted into circular towers and a fifth tower was added. The new castle was not just an imposing defensive bulwark. It was also decorated with a marble triumphal arch between two towers that depicts the glorious entry of the king into the city. We also see statues of the four Virtues, of the king himself in a toga and at the top a statue of Saint Michael the Archangel. The sculptures were made by Francesco Laurana (ca. 1430-1502) and several others, including Domenico Gagini (ca. 1420-1492) and Isaia da Pisa. Unfortunately the triumphal arch is nowadays covered in some kind of net, probably to protect the sculptures against pigeons.

King Alfonso died in 1458 and did not live to see the completion of the construction works. On the Neapolitan throne he was succeeded by his illegitimate son Ferdinand I, also known as Ferrante. Ferrante had a rough start. Pope Callixtus III and the French king Louis XI did not support his claim to the throne and sided with John of Anjou from the Angevin dynasty. But Ferrante managed to withstand the pressure, and after the death of Pope Callixtus on 6 August 1458 things began to look bright again for him. On 4 February 1459 he was formally crowned King of Naples in the cathedral of Barletta. King Ferrante twice had to suppress a rebellion of his barons, who opposed his policy of centralisation of power. After having put down the last rebellion, he invited the barons for a banquet in the great hall of the Castel Nuovo in 1486 or 1487. The pretext was the wedding of his niece, but the real reason was that he wanted to get rid of them for good. The barons who came to the Sala dei Baroni, which was named after them, in good faith were arrested by Ferrante’s soldiers and in many cases executed. Ferrante was notorious for having the bodies of executed enemies embalmed and keeping them in a mummy museum in his palace. It seems likely that he also did this with the rebellious barons, but fortunately no traces of this horrible practice survive in the Castel Nuovo.

The Kingdom of Naples was annexed by France in 1501 and then by Spain in 1504. The Spanish viceroys neglected the castle, and in the seventeenth century they used it as a prison. The Bourbon kings of Naples, who had acquired the throne in 1734, had a little bit more respect for the Castel Nuovo and ordered a series of restorations. However, they also chose to reside elsewhere themselves, in the more modern palaces that they had commissioned. Thus the Castel Nuovo chiefly became a monument of the past. It was not until the start of the twentieth century that an attempt was made to give the castle back its original – i.e. fifteenth-century – appearance. All sorts of constructions that had been built against the Castel Nuovo over the course of the centuries were demolished. As a result, the castle nowadays still looks impressive.

In search of Giotto

After buying my ticket I immediately proceeded to the palace chapel or Cappella Palatina. The chapel is a remarkable building, rather narrow, but immensely tall. Most of my sources assert that the building is dedicated to Saint Barbara, the patron saint of artillerymen (a good choice for a fortress). The Cappella Palatina has a nice Renaissance portal on the outside with a tympanum by the aforementioned Francesco Laurana. The large Gothic rose window is beautiful as well. It dates from ca. 1470 and is a work by the Catalan architect Matteo Forcimanya. The principal reason for wanting to visit the chapel were the remains of frescoes by the great Florentine painter Giotto (ca. 1266-1337) and his assistants. We know that Giotto worked in Naples from December of 1328 until December of 1333. He was employed as the court painter of King Robert the Wise and, among other things, embellished Robert’s church of Santa Chiara.[1] Work on the Cappella Palatina must have commenced in early 1329, as Giotto received his first payment in February of that year. The frescoes were probably completed around 1332. Giotto actually continued work that had been started by the painter Montano d’Arezzo, who was also from Tuscany (see Naples: The Duomo). Of Montano’s work nothing has survived.

Not much has survived of Giotto’s frescoes in the Cappella Palatina either. We know that he decorated the walls with scenes from the Old and New Testament. Giotto probably also painted an altarpiece, which possibly featured the Assumption of the Virgin and her Coronation in Heaven (at the time the chapel was not yet dedicated to Saint Barbara, but to the Virgin Mary). The interior of the chapel must have been magnificent, but regretfully only traces of the decorations remain today. King Ferrante continued the remodelling of the Castel Nuovo that had been started by his father Alfonso and his construction activities led to the loss of most of Giotto’s frescoes around the year 1470.[2] Only near the windows we can still see a few remnants of his works: plant motifs and heads of people. These frescoes are a bit second-rate, and it seems hardly likely that Giotto painted them himself. In 1329 he was well into his sixties and in charge of a large workshop. This part of the frescoes must have been painted by assistants. One of these was probably Maso di Banco.

Nowadays the Cappella Palatina is mostly used for exhibitions. In this post I will not discuss the contemporary art that has been put on display here and instead focus on the older works. These are, in the first place, detached fourteenth-century frescoes representing a choir of angels. The unknown Neapolitan painter was no doubt inspired by Giotto, but his frescoes are of mediocre quality at best. Much better is a tabernacle by Domenico Gagini, which has many lovely details: a Madonna and Child, God the Father, prophets, the Annunciation, people and angels kneeling before the Madonna and a rather weathered relief with scenes from the Book of Genesis. There was a second Madonna and Child in the chapel, also a work of high quality. I took a picture of it, but forgot to also take a picture of the explanatory caption. My idea to look up what I had seen at home quickly proved to be hopelessly naive. Perhaps it was a statue by Laurana, but I simply do not know.

Giotto and his assistants also worked on frescoes in the “secret chapel” (Cappella Segreta) of the castle. It looks like that whole chapel has disappeared, and the frescoes certainly do not survive. This unfortunately also applies to all of Giotto’s work in the Sala dei Baroni, which can be reached by taking the stairs in the central courtyard. Thanks to a source from about 1350 we know which nine illustrious men Giotto painted on the walls.[3] They were Alexander the Great, King Solomon, Hector, Aeneas, Achilles, Paris, Hercules, Samson and Julius Caesar. Hector was accompanied by Penthesilea, the amazon who was killed by Achilles. Achilles in his turn was accompanied by Polyxena, a Trojan princess who according to some traditions was sacrificed on his tomb. King Alfonso had Guillem Sagrera remodel the large hall between 1453 and 1457. All frescoes were lost in the process, not a trace of them remains and we can only speculate about what the illustrious men and women must have looked like. One small comfort is that we may still admire the fifteenth-century ceiling of the Sala dei Baroni. It consists of a rather spectacular rib vault with an oculus and sixteen ribs that together form a star or flower. The gloomy hall is nowadays used for meetings of the city council of Naples.

Museo Civico

Since 1990 the Castel Nuovo has housed the Museo Civico of Naples. The museum is just small and does not have any works that have left a deep impression on me. I thought the most interesting object was an original set of bronze doors of the castle that King Ferrante commissioned after his victory in the First Barons’ War (1459-1465). The doors date from ca. 1475 and were made by Guglielmo Monaco (died 1489), a monk and sculptor who was active at the Aragonese court in Naples. The doors are composed of six panels that demonstrate how Ferrante put down the rebellion. The bottom left panel was hit by a cannonball, which got stuck in it. The story behind the cannonball is as follows. In 1495 Naples was taken by the French king Charles VIII. Charles wanted to take home the doors as loot, but on their way to France his ships were attacked by a Genoese fleet. During the fighting a Genoese cannonball hit the bronze doors. The Genoese won the battle and returned the doors to Naples.

Of the other works in the museum I would like to mention a fifteenth-century panel painting by an unknown master (perhaps Francesco Pagano). We see the Madonna and Child, Pope Saint Gregorius the Great and Saint Benedictus. A small figure with a tonsured head is kneeling at the feet of the Madonna and near the mouth of Pope Gregorius we read the words ORO PRO POPVULO, “I pray for the people”. To the left of his head we see the pigeon of the Holy Spirit. Another interesting object is a gilded reliquary of Saint Barbara. She has been depicted with the tower in which her father had locked her up. The museum also has a lot of works from the nineteenth century, of varying quality. A small balcony near the museum entrance gives visitors a nice view of the port of Naples, with the Vesuvius in the background.

Notes

[1] See Francesca Flores d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 346-351.

[2] Ross King, The Bookseller of Florence, p. 246.

[3] Francesca Flores d’Arcais, Giotto, p. 351.