The Royal Palace of Caserta houses one of the most beautiful parks in the world, created at the behest of King Charles of Bourbon, with its unusual English Garden, the famous Bath of Venus, and the magical Cryptoporticus which reproduces suggestive Roman ruins inspired by ancient Pompeii.

The Royal Park was designed in the second half of the 18th century by Luigi Vanvitelli and his son Carlo who combined Italian Renaissance models with French-style solutions, introduced in Versailles by the architect André Le Nôtre, and English inspired by the landscape artist Lancelot Brown.

In addition to its most famous part, the Via d’Acqua that leads to the Fountain of Diana and Actaeon with its iconic perspective view, there are two other areas of the park of particular charm: the Bosco Vecchio, with the large Peschiera, built by Ferdinand IV to amuse himself with small naval battles, and the Castelluccia, a place of games and leisure for the little princes, and the English Garden, strongly desired by Maria Carolina of Habsburg, sister of Marie Antoinette of France.

Such magic can rarely be found anywhere else.

(Johann Gottfried Seume)

It is precisely on this wonder that we wish to focus and, in particular, on the Bath of Venus and the Cryptoporticus which houses wonderful statues from the excavations of Pompeii and the Farnese collection, as well as the remains of a Doric temple.

The English Garden was created by the landscape botanist John Andrea Graefer according to the canons of the “English” garden at the suggestion of William Hamilton, archaeologist, volcanologist, antiquarian and diplomat of his British Majesty at the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Characterized by an immense quantity of rare and exotic plants, its most fascinating part is the one inspired by one of the fashions of the time, namely the creation of “fake” ruins, a consequence of the worldwide popularity of the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum that began around 1738.

When you enter the Cryptoporticus, in fact, Vanvitelli deceives us into thinking we are in an archaeological area, on the site of an ancient Roman nymphaeum. Inside, under a coffered vault torn by fake cracks and false collapses that create incredible plays of light, various statues are exhibited, including a Venus, Aesculapius and several toga-wearing figures that are added to a monumental sarcophagus in Pavonazzetto marble from Villa Farnesina in Rome.

This suggestive gallery space overlooks the Bagno di Venere, creating one of the most fascinating views of the English Garden. The body of water hosts, in fact, a Venus in Carrara marble, inspired by the famous classical model of the crouching Aphrodite and sculpted by Tommaso Solari in 1762.

The placid waters that surround it spring from the base of a monumental Yew tree and from some waterfalls connected to the Fontana del Pastore.

These are environments with incredible light and suggestions that, depending on each person’s feelings, bring us to a dimension close to the divine or make us feel like modern Indiana Jones in search of his lost temple.

The Secret

In the English Garden, Queen Maria Carolina, part of the Neapolitan Freemasonry, wanted to symbolically re-propose an initiatory itinerary that ended in the lake dedicated to Venus.

Useful Info

Giardino Inglese Reggia di Caserta
Piazza Carlo di Borbone
81100 Caserta
Tel. +39 0823 448084

Park + Royal Apartments: full ticket 18 euro
Royal Park + English Garden: full ticket 9 euro