Museum of Castel Nuovo

The Civic Museum of Castel Nuovo is located inside of the castle, also known as Maschio Angioino.

The first room is composed by the Palatine Chapel (dedicated to St. Sebastian and Santa Barbara), dating back to 1307 and unique property remained in the castle of the first phase of construction of the Angevin period. The Chapel has a Renaissance portal with reliefs (Nativity and Madonna and Angels of Eagle Andrea and Francesco Laurana), with a rose window designed by Matteo Forcimanya belonging to the Catalan school.

Inside there are paintings of Giotto, decorative leftovers attributed to Maso di Banco and a fifteenth-century ciborium by Jacopo della Pila. There are also kept other cycles of frescoes from the fourteenth century castle Dodge Casaluce and the fourteenth-century ciborium of San Gennaro extra Moenia.

Of particular importance are the valuable sculptures made by artists who also worked arc of Aragon Alfonso triumphant (XV century), examples of the Neapolitan Renaissance. Between these two Enthroned Madonna with Child Francesco Laurana , one of which also called Madonna del Passero, from St. Augustine to the Mint.

The interior of the chapel had frescos by Giotto, executed in 1330, which resumed the Stories of the Old and New Testaments. The content of this cycle of frescoes is almost entirely lost even if there are decorative pieces in the window splays reminiscent of those of the Bardi Chapel in Santa Croce in Florence. Finally they exposed silver items which made up a large part of the furnishings of the church of the Santissima Annunziata Maggiore, among which Baroque chandeliers.

Upon entering the room, you immediately notice a tub of suburban villa, the fifth century, covered with white marble slabs on which fits the curtain wall Angevin. The oldest part of such finds, dating the first century BC, is located in the eastern part of the hall and is represented by an apse that opens into five semicircular niches. The most likely hypothesis is that it is a pool belonging to a villa at the time, probably that of Licinius Lucullus.

several dozens of graves were also discovered, dating back to the period when the area assumed the role of the necropolis (VI-XII century), with minimal grave goods and some personal items such as rings, earrings and a pair of bronze spurs decorated a feline.

On the first floor you can admire paintings of the fifteenth century from St Eligius Maggiore as a Madonna and Child with Saints and numerous tables of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as a Death of St. Joseph of Paolo De Matteis .

The Saint Nicholas in Glory, signed and dated 1658 by Luca Giordano , comes from St. Nicholas church in the Nile; The Miracle of Saint John of God Francesco Solimena comes from the church of Santa Maria della Pace; The Adoration of the Magi sixteenth was performed for the Palatine chapel of the castle by Marco Cardisco who follow the lesson of Raphael, depicted in the painting the portraits of Ferdinand I, Alfonso II and Charles V in place of the Magi. Finally, there are the paintings of the Neapolitan school of the seventeenth century, including paintings by Mattia Preti and Domenichino .

On the second floor are preserved paintings nineteenth and twentieth century now owned by the City of Naples. Sculptures are also on display Vincenzo Gemito and also the works of Francesco Jerace part of Jerace donation, which occurred right in favor of the City.

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