Poggio Reale (villa)

40°52′12″N 14°17′33″E / 40.870042°N 14.292380°E / 40.870042; 14.292380

Map of Italy with mark showing location of Villa Poggio Reale
Map of Italy with mark showing location of Villa Poggio Reale
Villa Poggio Reale
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Location of Villa Poggio Reale, Naples, Italy

The Poggio Reale villa or Villa Poggio Reale was an Italian Renaissance villa commissioned in 1487 by Alfonso II of Naples as a royal summer residence. The Italian phrase "poggio reale" translates to "royal hill" in English. The villa was designed and built by Giuliano da Maiano and located in the city of Naples, in the district now known as Poggioreale, between the present Via del Campo, Via Santa Maria del Pianto and the new and old Via Poggioreale. At the time it was built, a period when the capital city of the Kingdom of Naples was renowned for elegant homes with expansive vistas of the surrounding landscape and Mount Vesuvius, the villa was outside the city walls of Naples and was one of the most important architectural achievements of the Neapolitan Renaissance.[1] Imitated, admired, robbed of its treasures by another king, left in ruins and partially destroyed, the summer palace of the King of Naples lives on in name as a style.[2][3]

An idealized painting of the Villa Poggio Reale, Viviano Codazzi, c. 1600s.
  1. ^ Gardiner, Eileen, d'Engenio Caracciolo, Cesare, and Bacco, Enrico; Naples, An Early Guide, Italica Press 2008, Introduction p. xlv. ISBN 978-0934977203.
  2. ^ Abraham Leuthner von Grundt, in Architectural Theory: From the Renaissance to the Present : 89 Essays on 117 Treatises, Bernd Evers, Christof Thoenes, eds., Taschen, 2003, p. 542. ISBN 9783822816998.
  3. ^ "21-22", Kwartalnik architektury i urbanistyki. PWN. 1976. pp. 310, 321.