Photos

The Caserta Palace, in Italian Reggia di Caserta, is a palace and former Royal residence in Caserta, near Naples, once used by the Kings of Naples. It was the largest palace and probably the largest building erected in Europe in the 18th century. In 1996, the Palace of Caserta was listed among the World Heritage Sites on the ground that it was "the swan song of the spectacular art of the Baroque, from which it adopted all the features needed to create the illusions of multidirectional space". The Kingdom of Naples was neither powerful nor prosperous when Caserta was built, and it was less flatteringly described by the historian Edward Crankshaw as "a colossal monument to minuscule glory."

The construction of the palace was begun in 1752 for Charles VII of Naples, who worked closely with his architect Luigi Vanvitelli. When King Charles saw Vanvitelli's grandly-scaled model for Caserta it filled him with emotion "fit to tear his heart from his breast". In the end, he never slept a night at the Reggia, as he resigned from the throne in 1759 to become King of Spain, and the project was carried to completion for his third son and successor Ferdinand IV of Naples.
The models for Vanvitelli's palace are supposed to have been Versailles, Charlottenburg, and the Royal Palace in Madrid, devised by Filippo Juvarra for Charles' father, Felipe V of Spain. A spacious octagonal vestibule seems to have been inspired by Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, while the palatine chapel references the works of Jules Hardouin Mansart.
Vanvitelli died in 1773: the construction was continued by his son Carlo, until it was ended in 1780.
As finished, the palace has some 1,200 rooms, two dozen state apartments, and a royal theatre modelled after the Teatro San Carlo of Naples.
The population of Caserta Vecchia was shifted 10 kilometers to make it available to the new palace. A silk manufactory at San Leucio was disguised as a pavilion in the immense parkland.
A monumental avenue, 20 kilometers in length, which would have connected the Palace to Naples, was never realized.

(wikipèdia source)

info http://www.reggiadicaserta.org/