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The Ducal Palace was built in 1668, on the
remains of the ancient castle of Raimondello del Balzo Orsini,
built in 1338.
The Ducal Palace, instead, was built by the eighth Duke of Martina,
Petracone V Caracciolo, as you can see from the inscription on
the portal architrave, that is the symbol of the clan power. |
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The project was great, stately and cost a lot
of money ( the first work allotment cost 60.000 ducats) It was
inspired by luxurious Roman palaces: there were 300 rooms,
chapels, sheds, court, theatre and guest quarter. In the
beginning, they thought this palace had been planned by
Gianlorenzo Bernini, but recent investigations allotted it to
Giovanni Andrea Carducci, from Bergamo, who probably worked on a
plan assented by Bernini. Carducci made use of the local
masters’art, that is said “the white powder art”.
The palace, as it was originally planned, was never finished
because of its cost. Only part of the eastern area was finished,
thanks to Duke Francesco III, in 1773.The façade, in a typical
Baroque style, is horizontally divided by a wrought iron balcony,
made by local masters, and vertically divided by pilasters. The
portal is wide with a pointed arch and it has two half- columns
of Tuscan order. There is a lapidary inscription Petraconus V -
fundamentis erexit / anno DNI MDCLXVIII and some militar
decorations and apotropaic masks on the upper wall. A wide stair
takes you to the Baroque portal, in a late Reinassance
style,through which you get into the Royal Apartmens. There are
golden rococò walls, ear-shaped and set along the same axis.
They take you to precious rooms, some of which were painted by
Domenico Carella in 1776: the Dukes’Chapel, the Arcadia hall,
the Myth hall and the Bible hall. |
