Villa Floridiana
Vomero Hill was once an aristocratic district with many of Naples's most extravagant estates, including La Floridiana, the sole surviving 19th-century example. It was built in 1817 on order of Ferdinand IV for Lucia Migliaccio, duchess of Floridia. Only nine months after his first wife, the Habsburg Maria Carolina, died, and while the court was still in mourning, Ferdinand secretly married Lucia, his longtime mistress. Scandal ensued, but the king and his new wife were too happy to worry, escaping high above the city to this elegant little estate. Their portraits hang in a room to the left of the villa's main entrance.
Immersed in a delightful park done in the English style by Degenhardt (also responsible for the park in Capodimonte), the villa was designed by architect Antonio Niccolini in the Neoclassical style. It now houses the Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina, a museum devoted to the decorative arts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Countless cases on three floors display what Edith Wharton described as "all those fragile and elaborate trifles the irony of fate preserves when brick and marble crumble." Here you'll find Sèvres, Limoges, and Meissen porcelains; gold watches; ivory fans; glassware; enamels; majolica vases; and one of Italy's most significant collections of Oriental antiquities. Sadly, there are no period rooms left to see.
