Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes
Set behind what could be, save for the palm trees, a very English expanse of lawn, this salmon-pink building with its Athenian-style porch was built in 1826 for Ferdinand Acton, the son of English aristocrat Sir John Acton. In 1841, it was bought by the Rothschild banking family, who brought in Gaetano Genovese—he of the Palazzo Reale's sumptuous staircase—to design the Salotto Rosso and the ballroom.
The villa then passed to a distant ancestor of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, and eventually went to the Italian State in 1955. Attractions here include a sumptuous collection of porcelain and a biblioteca-discoteca—an archive of classical and operatic records. The villa also contains paintings that are part of Banco di Napoli's collection, including works by masters of Neapolitan Baroque, as well as 18th- and 19th-century landscapes.
