The Museum

Already in 1735, King Charles gave orders to transfer the Farnese’s collections inherited by his mother Elisabeth Farnese to Naples. These vast collections, made by paintings, drawings, bronze statues, artistic objects and pieces of furniture, medals and coins, gems, cameos and other archeological materials were mainly arranged in the Palazzo della Pilotta in Parma, and some of them in the Palazzo del Giardino always in Parma, in the Palazzo Ducale of Piacenza, the residence of Colorno and the Farnese Palace in Rome.
King Charles, who still was Duke of Parma and Piacenza, ordered a general inventory of these artistic materials:

those objects of low value were not included in the inventory (Just a few of them, of course), whereas the other artistic works were transferred to Naples, at first put in the Royal Palace and then moved to Capodimonte as soon as the Palace was ready to house the museum. In 1739 a committee of experts were tasked by the sovereign to study the most suitable way to arrange part of the collections from Parma: the paintings were put in the rooms facing south and the sea, since they were drier and had a better light, whereas books, medals and other objects were put in the so-called “backrooms”, facing the woods.

The Park

Only in 1758, however, the first 12 of the 24 rooms destined to the library , the collection of medals, the paintings and antiquity collection were completed at the upper floor.
Before the pillage made by Napoleon’s troops in 1799, there were 1783 paintings (the original Farnese pinacoteca only had 329 paintings and not all of them were moved to Naples by Charles); it is clear that, beside the Farnese collection, the museum already exhibited works from the Bourbon collection. The French took more than 300 of them .
During the 19th century, the Museum was enriched with other important sections: the Bourbon collections, paintings and precious objects from closed monasteries, royal donations and subsequent acquisitions;

The Palace of Capodimonte on the background of the beautiful city of Naples

the masterpieces collected by Cardinal Borgia and purchased by Ferdinand I in 1817, Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman antiquities, among which the famous “Globo celeste”. Moreover, the museum included a graphic arts collection, one of the most important of Italy, and the new group of works by contemporary artists. The exhibitions confirmed the rigour, passion, culture, daily management of a huge historical patrimony that took a curtain call among the international artistic circuits.

Other “pillages” took place in 1860, when the Kingdom was occupied by Garibaldi: less than 800 out of the 900 and more pantings were left in the museum .
The Royal Palace of Capodimonte became National Museum after the Unification.