DOI Kapitel:
Chapter III: Past and Present - Santa Lucia, etc.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0107
Naples
when a brilliant French court occupied it, the passion
for French titles giving it the ill-omened name of the
Tuileries. The last two Neapolitan kings shared the
same nickname of “Bomba”—the only instance, I think,
of a nom de nique inherited.
There is an older palace at the back of the Piazza ;
but nobody remarks it now. Its towers have sunk,
and it is but an empty shell, full, not indeed of ghosts
(for ghosts are extremely rare all over Italy), but of
horrors—skeletons and ghastly legends. Yet the
Castel Nuovo was one of the great achievements of
the Anjous. In it was the famous chapel built in the
Gothic style they introduced, and which was completed
by Robert the Wise, the only king of Naples to whom
a beneficent title has clung. There, between 1329 and
1332, Giotto is said to have painted his frescoes while
the king delighted in watching him at work, listening
to his talk. Not a trace now remains of the bright
genius which once glorified this chapel, said to have
been the most beautiful of the time. That Giotto
really worked there one may reasonably doubt; still,
the official list of items for the painting of the
ceiling during that period were paid to “ Zotto di
Firenze.”
Close on the back of the Royal Palace stands San
Carlo, the result of a Nero-like determination to build
the biggest theatre in the world. It sprang up within
three months, as if under the touch of a magic wand,
a “ Coliseum of modern times ” (as some one called
it), the opening of which roused theatre-going to a
46
when a brilliant French court occupied it, the passion
for French titles giving it the ill-omened name of the
Tuileries. The last two Neapolitan kings shared the
same nickname of “Bomba”—the only instance, I think,
of a nom de nique inherited.
There is an older palace at the back of the Piazza ;
but nobody remarks it now. Its towers have sunk,
and it is but an empty shell, full, not indeed of ghosts
(for ghosts are extremely rare all over Italy), but of
horrors—skeletons and ghastly legends. Yet the
Castel Nuovo was one of the great achievements of
the Anjous. In it was the famous chapel built in the
Gothic style they introduced, and which was completed
by Robert the Wise, the only king of Naples to whom
a beneficent title has clung. There, between 1329 and
1332, Giotto is said to have painted his frescoes while
the king delighted in watching him at work, listening
to his talk. Not a trace now remains of the bright
genius which once glorified this chapel, said to have
been the most beautiful of the time. That Giotto
really worked there one may reasonably doubt; still,
the official list of items for the painting of the
ceiling during that period were paid to “ Zotto di
Firenze.”
Close on the back of the Royal Palace stands San
Carlo, the result of a Nero-like determination to build
the biggest theatre in the world. It sprang up within
three months, as if under the touch of a magic wand,
a “ Coliseum of modern times ” (as some one called
it), the opening of which roused theatre-going to a
46