Heading north from the centre of the city you climb ever upwards along via Toledo, which goes through several name changes before reaching the hillside Parco di Capodimonte, a green escape above and behind the city, with Naples' greatest and biggest art collection, including important paintings by Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael, Brueghel and Botticelli, in the Palazzo Reale. Below the hill of Capodimonte, La Sanità is another of the city's down-at-heel areas, but also has some fascinating ancient catacombs with Paleo-Christian mosaics and frescoes: the Catacombe di San Gennaro and the Catacombe di San Gaudioso. In the Cimitero delle Fontanelle (closed for renovation at the time of writing), anonymous skulls are traditionally ‘adopted’ by the living in hope of receiving good fortune from the souls of the dead. Further east, along the busy via Foria, the Orto Botanico (botanical garden) is a rare oasis of greenery and peace. SightsParco di Capodimonte Bus 24 runs from outside Galleria Umberto I via piazza Municipio and piazza Dante up to La Sanità and Capodimonte, but can be rather infrequent. Originally created as a hunting ground for Carlo III, the park is now popular as a weekend excursion from the city, and can become a little overrun, especially around the Palazzo Reale itself, where countless games of football take place on the worn grass between the palm trees. The views of the city and the bay to the south are spectacular from here, but it’s as the park stretches north that you are more likely to find some peace away from the crowds. Palazzo Reale di Capodimonte via Capodimonte, T 081-7499111. Tue-Sat 1000-1900, Sun 0900-1400, closed Mon. €7.50, €6.50 (1400-1700). Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe: Tue-Sat 0940-1400. Rather grander than the hunting lodge Carlo III apparently originally wanted, this imposing scarlet palace on top of the hill, begun in 1738, is home to the Farnese Collection of Renaissance art (which Carlo inherited from his mother Elisabetta, the last of the Farnese) alongside the Bourbon Collection and a great number of the most important Neapolitan works from the 14th century onwards. In case this doesn’t impress you enough, there is a floor of modern art, and some elaborately decorated royal apartments. It’s the art that most come to see, however. This is one of the world’s great collections, large and broad enough to satisfy the most ardent fans of Renaissance and post-Renaissance art, and with enough gems to convert just about everybody else. To try and see everything in one go is probably over-ambitious. The first two floors alone comprise 160 rooms and that’s before you’ve looked at any modern art, photography, drawings or prints. A half-day could easily be spent just looking at the highlights; the following are some suggestions of where to start. On the first floor, the Farnese Collection starts at the top of the stairs and proceeds all the way down the side of the building. In here are some of the most obvious highlights in the museum, starting with Raphael and Titian’s various portraits of Pope Paolo III from youth to old age in room 2, and Masaccio’s Crucifixion in room 3. Also in these first few rooms is Vasari’s ambitious Allegory of Justice, Truth and Vice. Titian’s Danae (room 11) is possibly the highlight of the first floor, however: the naked Danae is seduced by Jupiter who rains down gold upon her. It is an extraordinarily erotic painting, especially given that it was painted for the private chambers of a Cardinal. In the same room, El Greco’s Soflon is a small but extraordinarily modern, almost impressionist, piece. Other paintings worth looking out for on the first floor include Botticelli’s early Madonna with Child and Two Angels (room 6), Parmigianino’s Portrait of a Young Woman (which the museum seems to have adopted as its symbol, perhaps because of the powerfully fixating look in the girl’s eyes), two allegorical Brueghels in room 17, Caracci’s showpiece The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (room 19), and Guido Reni’s dramatic Atalanta and Hippomenes in room 22. The Royal Apartments, filled with period furniture, Capodimonte ceramics and paintings (including an oddly out-of- place Renoir), are all on this floor too. Don’t wear yourself out before the climb up to the second floor, however, because this is the museum’s real highlight. Don’t miss Titian’s beautiful Annunciation, which has a room (75) all to itself, or Caldara’s series of six darkly expressionistic panels, but even these pale slightly in comparison with what’s to follow. Originally commissioned by the De Franchis family for the family chapel in San Domenico Maggiore but now hanging in pride of place at the end of a long corridor of galleries, Caravaggio’s Flagellation is an extraordinary composition. Savagely violent and dramatic, the large dark space above the figures gives an oppressive feel to the image, while the crouching figure bottom left lends a sense of depth as well as an almost cinematic feeling of impending brutality. Actually depicting the moment immediately prior to Christ’s flagellation, Caravaggio's very human drama puts into perspective the detached religiosity visible in much of the rest of the museum. In everything that comes after, you tend to see Caravaggio’s influence, especially in the works of Battistello and his Neapolitan contemporaries. These rooms go on and on, and you’ll need stamina to keep going, though Artemesia Gentileschi’s Susanna Washing is well worth a look, as are her Judith and Holofernes, Stanzione’s Martyring of Saint Agatha, and Ribero’s Maddalena in Meditation. On the third floor, a more eclectic mix of painting and photography eventually gives way to a space filled with some interesting modern art including an Andy Warhol pop art depiction of the explosion of Vesuvius. Back on the ground, the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe (Drawing and Prints) has some interesting works, including a Rembrandt and a Tintoretto. Catacombe di San Gaudioso piazza della Sanità, T 081-483238 http://www.cib.na.cnr.it/vergini/ visitacat.html Tours only (about 40 mins), Mon-Sun 0930, 1015, 1100, 1145, 1230, also Sat 1710, 1750, 1830. €3. Bang in the middle of La Sanità, under the cavernous church of Santa Maria della Sanità, these rather dank and mouldy catacombs are notable for their rare 5th- and 6th-century Paleo-Christian mosaics and frescoes. Taking up most of the space here, however, are modifications made by Dominican monks in the 17th century, when the church above was also built. They took up the unhealthy Aragonese habit of seating dead bodies in seditori, stone seats where the bodies were left to decompose and the bones dry out before being moved to a communal ossarium or private tomb. They also set the skulls of the dead into the walls and painted skeletons around them. Many of these can still be seen. Catacombe di San Gennaro via Capodimonte 16, T 081-7411071. Up towards Capodimonte, these catacombs contain even earlier frescoes from the second century AD, and became an important pilgrimage site in the fifth century when San Gennaro’s body was moved here from Pozzuoli. The catacombs were closed at the time of writing, but are due to reopen soon. Orto Botanico via Foria 223, T 081-449759. Mon-Fri 0900-1400, theoretically by appointment only, though it may be possible to slip in. Free. Stepping up into this oasis from the hectic via Foria below is quite a contrast, not to say a relief. Wide open paths wind around the site with tall palms and a variety of other trees and plants, all well labelled. Founded by Joseph Bonaparte in 1807 the garden concentrates on Mediterranean flora. There are pristine lawns and the fern section is particularly impressive. To the east of the gardens are the crumbling remains of Carlo III’s 18th-century Albergo dei Poveri, built to house the city’s poor. Covering 103,000 square metres it is still Europe’s biggest public building, though only a fifth of the original plan was ever completed. It’s currently being restored at vast expense.
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