Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte

Located in the Royal Palace of Capodimonte, this museum showcases Neapolitan paintings, decorative arts, and ancient Roman sculptures.

Planning your visit

Capodimonte holds one of Italy's great picture collections, and almost nobody outside Naples talks about it. The Bourbon kings built the palace above the city in 1738 to house the Farnese inheritance that Charles VII brought from Rome and Parma, and the result is a collection of first rank: Titian, Raphael, Botticelli, Bellini, Masaccio, El Greco, Brueghel's Blind Leading the Blind, and Caravaggio's Flagellation, painted in Naples.

The Neapolitan galleries above are the museum's own territory — Ribera, Luca Giordano, Solimena and the Baroque painters who made Naples a European capital of art in the seventeenth century, shown in depth found nowhere else.

The palace sits in 130 hectares of woodland park, once the royal hunting ground, now a public park with views over the bay.

The catch is the location: it is above the city centre, requiring a bus or taxi, and that distance keeps the crowds down to a fraction of what the collection deserves.

Bookable options include entry tickets and small-group guided tours. Current availability is listed below.