Contemporary and digital in the Royal Palace of Caserta

The Reggia di Caserta closes 2024 on a high note by presenting the public with a rich offering of cultural proposals and a range of digital services that will enhance the museum's overall experience. Over the past three years, visitors to the Reggia have grown by more than 38%, rising from 350,000 in 2021 to almost 934,000 in 2024, approaching one million in 2024; the increase in visitors has been followed over the years by an improvement in the quality of services, culminating with the presentation of the project "Reggia di Caserta in digital: a platform open to the world". The project, financed to the tune of 1 million euro with European PON Culture and Development funds from the previous 2014-2020 programming period, envisages a series of products and services for participatory cultural production and fruition.

Fondo archivistico

New connections and cabling have been installed over an area of approximately 33,200 square metres, and the network and hardware infrastructure has been completed. This will allow connection to the wi-fi network along the entire museum itinerary of the Royal Apartments, providing access, thanks to QR-Codes scattered along the way, to in-depth digital content. The work was also followed by the release of the new institutional website developed in accordance with the Linked Open Data (LOD) paradigm, and the platform of the "Vanvitelli Documentation Centre", usable on the Sinapsi project. The platform collects and indexes documents focusing on the figure of Luigi Vanvitelli, his pupils and collaborators in connection with his time. Another release is the Virtual Reality model that uses special visors to view the central reconstruction of the park, with the Gran Parterre and the typical elements of the Italian garden.

Tiziana Maffei direttrice Reggia di Caserta e Michelangelo Pistoletto

A real treat is the interactive video game 'One Day at Reggia di Caserta', which recreates a day in the life at court in the time of the Bourbons, with a series of quests and puzzles through the halls of the Royal Palace and the spaces of the Monumental Park. It is 1780 and Ferdinand IV is finally able to inaugurate the new palace by preparing a huge banquet for the arrival of King Charles III, his father. The user, by solving missions and collecting objects and memorabilia, will help Ferdinand in the organisation of this huge event. To do so, he will have to come into contact with various characters and court figures who inhabited the Palace. Throughout the game experience the user will be able to collect objects and documents that enrich the experience, such as archival documents on the history of the Reggia; illustrations and ancient and modern paintings. The game, available free of charge on Apple Store and Google Store, can be played on smartphones for now, later also on PCs. The digital offer is completed with the new multimedia room dedicated to Lucio Amelio, the late protagonist of the national contemporary art scene, placed at the end of the museum tour of the Royal Apartments, to better understand the "Terrae Motus" collection.

The enhancement of the historical heritage of the Royal Palace of Caserta continues with the agreement between the Museum Management, the Archives General Management, the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendence of Campania and the State Archives of Caserta, signed last November. Thanks to this agreement, the archival fonds of the Royal Palace of Caserta will be formally handed over to the Superintendency for safekeeping by the State Archives, which has full legal ownership. The Archive consists of a rich complex of documentary nuclei: pre-unification from the beginning of the 15th century and post-unification until the first half of the 20th century. Its contents testify to the phases of industrial development in the province of Terra di Lavoro from the 18th century onwards, including the buying and selling of land, and the supervision of rents and censuses of crown lands. This fund also contains documentation on the royal sites of San Leucio and Carditello. During this period, the exhibition 'Metawork' can be visited, presenting over 60 works by the master Michelangelo Pistoletto until 30 June 2025. Among the themes addressed is the relationship between art and spirituality, with The Time of Judgement in the work on display in the west wing of the Royal Palace, which is presented as a temple that brings together the main monotheistic religions - Christianity, Islam, Judaism - and Buddhism. Also on display at the Royal Palace of Caserta is the series "Messa a nudo" (Naked Mass) from 2020, which features the human figure, without preconceptions, in its aesthetics and equality in the face of the beauty of diversity, be it ethnic, cultural or religious. From the contemporary we move on to tradition with the 'Gran Ballo a Corte' (Grand Ball at Court), scheduled for 20 December, where dancers from the Naples and Caserta Dance Society Association, dressed in 19th-century costumes, animate the Royal Palace open until late in the evening, evoking the atmosphere of the Bourbon court.