A Princely Museum
In establishing this museum, Prince Gaetano Filangieri had in mind a cultural and civic intent, that is, in his own words, to exhibit "...those works that represent the memories of our ancient luster, and are most important to the history of our art..."
History of the Museum
The design and layout of the museum are due to the foresight of the art historian and art collector Gaetano Filangieri, Prince of Satriano (1824 -1892). In 1882, Filangieri asked the Naples City Council to move his art collections to what remained of the famous Palazzo Como, a rare architectural example of the Tuscan Renaissance in Naples, then in ruins.
The offer to make it a civic museum was accepted by the Council, and in 1883 work began on the rebuilding and restoration of the building, fully financed by the Prince. On 8 November 1888, the museum opened to the public. During the Second World War, on 30 September 1943 to be precise, a squad of German bombers set fire to Villa Montesano in San Paolo Bel Sito, where the museum's most valuable works were kept, together with the most precious documents of the Naples State Archives.
Of the museum's holdings, about forty paintings and a case containing antique weapons were saved. Among the most important pieces that were destroyed were two portraits of men by Botticelli, a Deposition by Francesco Solimena, and an Education of the Virgin by Bernardino Luini. In 1946, the superintendent of the Neapolitan galleries, Bruno Molajoli, appealed to the Neapolitans to restore the destroyed collections. In 1948, together with the National Museum of San Martino and the Duca di Martina National Museum of Ceramics, the Filangieri was reopened to the public thanks to the generous donations of Filippo Perrone, Mario De Ciccio, and Salvatore Romano, and thanks to the temporary loan of the works from the National Museum of Capodimonte.
Heritage
The diverse collection boasts more than 3,000 objects of various provenance and time periods. There are specimens of applied arts (majolica, porcelain, biscuit, ivory, weapons and armor, medals), paintings and sculptures from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, nativity scenes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and also a library with about 30,000 volumes and a historical archive with documents from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century.
The pictorial collection especially gathers paintings from seventeenth century Naples, including works by Jusepe de Ribera, Luca Giordano, Andrea Vaccaro, Battistello Caracciolo, and Mattia Preti. The exhibition is divided into three main areas: the Carlo Filangieri Room, the Agata Room, and the Library. The Carlo Filangieri Room houses a unique series of eighteenth and nineteenth century weapons and armor from China, Japan and Turkey, collected by Carlo Filangieri, Gaetano's father, the illustrious military man who served as Minister of War during the reign of Francis II of the Two Sicilies.
The Carlo Filangieri Room is divided into three bays, thanks to the large ribbed vaults made of mosaic with a gold background entrusted to the Salviati Factory of Venice. An environment with multiple narrative features: from the Renaissance architecture to the twentieth century renovation, and then moving on to sculptures, weapons, clothing, and ceramics that tell of distant cultures such as those of the Far East. The room's focal point is the niche in which the bust of Carlo Filangieri is placed, made by the sculptor Tito Angelini. The upper room of the museum is dedicated to the Prince Filangieri's mother, Agata Moncada di Paternò.
Structured according to the criteria of industrial innovation introduced at the end of the nineteenth century, the space is characterized by the particular majolica floor, on which the figure and coat of arms of the Filangieri is repeated. The prince commissioned the Industrial Artistic Museum of Naples to create the floor, entrusting the artistic direction to Fillippo Palizzi and the technical direction to Giovanni Tesorone. Diffuse lighting in the space is provided by the fantastic iron and glass skylight, from 1888, commissioned from the Cottrau Metal Construction Company. The gallery contains paintings by great European masters from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, including: Heckart, Fuger, Luca Giordano, Solimena, Andrea Vaccaro, and Jusepe de Ribera. A wooden passageway provides access to the suspended balcony, a space that expands the exhibition area and then leads to the library. In this second level, the showcases contain a refined collection of porcelain and biscuit, their provenance is varied, from Meissen to the Real Fabbrica di Capodimonte.
The Library, finally, is a reserved, refined, and meditative environment, at the center of which stands the prince's desk, on which some loose documents and glasses are found. The library holds a vast collection of books and magazines in which texts by Eugène Viollet Le Duc, Claude Sauvageot, Albert Jacquemart, Giuseppe Corona, G. Campori, A. Venturi, G. Morelli, G.B. Cavalcaselle, and G. Milanesi stand out.
