Villa Lucia, Historic villa in Vomero district, Naples, Italy

Villa Lucia is a neoclassical building in Pompeian style in Vomero, beside the Villa Floridiana park and above the Grifeo park in Chiaia. Antonio Niccolini completed its roof and redid the facade, adding a four-column portico that gives it the look of a Doric temple. A 16-metre-high bridge, built to overcome the steep slope, once linked it to the rest of the Floridiana park.

Villa Lucia began as a Benedictine prayer site in the late 16th century and a Lucchese retreat house in the mid-17th century. Giuseppe Saliceti, minister of Joachim Murat, bought it in 1807; Francesco Maresca turned it into a temple-shaped coffee-house in 1809. Ferdinand I acquired it in 1816 for the Floridiana complex, and Antonio Niccolini added the four-column Doric portico and a 16-metre bridge. In 1827 the duchess's heirs split the estate, and Count Luigi Grifeo received Villa Lucia.

The villa's name comes from Lucia Migliaccio, Duchess of Floridia, the favourite of King Ferdinand I, who received the whole Floridiana complex. In the 20th century it became a meeting place for artists and anti-fascist intellectuals around the studio of painter Paolo Ricci, and later hosted figures such as Pablo Neruda, Alberto Moravia and Palmiro Togliatti.

Villa Lucia is a private luxury condominium, not open to visitors. It can only be seen from outside: a lane leads to it from Via Cimarosa, beside the upper station of the Chiaia funicular, and it stands next to the Villa Floridiana park, separated from it by a boundary wall.

Villa Lucia is reached by a small path running from Via Cimarosa beside the upper station of the Chiaia funicular; part of its parkland was expropriated in 1888 to build that funicular. In the 20th century the villa became a meeting place for artists and anti-fascist intellectuals, and Massimo Caprara recalled evenings on its sea-facing terrace with Palmiro Togliatti.