Belvedere di San Leucio, Royal palace in San Leucio, Caserta, Italy.
The Belvedere di San Leucio is a cream-coloured palace with a central three-storey block and two side wings enclosing a paved courtyard. The facade has a white double door, an arched balcony window with a dark statue, and rows of rectangular windows under tiled hipped roofs. The complex also includes the silk factory, workers' housing, and Italian-style gardens on terraces.
Charles of Bourbon, advised by minister Bernardo Tanucci, sent local youths to France to learn silk weaving for the royal factories. In 1778 the architect Francesco Collecini designed the Real Colonia di San Leucio, governed by a statute of 1789 signed by Ferdinand IV. The planned circular city of Ferdinandopoli was halted by the 1799 revolution, and the site passed to the state after Italian unification.
The name San Leucio comes from a small church dedicated to Saint Lucius; the silk woven here furnished the White House, Buckingham Palace and the Quirinal. In the dining room Fedele Fischetti painted allegories of Bacchus and Ariadne, while the bathroom has encaustic designs by Jacob Philipp Hackert. Every June and July the Teatro Serici hosts the Leuciana Festival.
Access to the monumental complex passes through a gate under an arch topped by the royal coat of arms held by two lions. The workers' quarters, San Carlo and San Ferdinando with thirty-seven apartments, stand to the right and left, linked to the palace by a double staircase around the royal stables. The Italian gardens lie on different levels in the western part, connected by stairs.
Ferdinand IV planned to expand the colony into a circular new city called Ferdinandopoli, with radial streets and a central square; construction stopped after the 1799 revolution and the Parthenopean Republic. The 1789 code, printed in 150 copies by the Royal Press, abolished private property and set up a common charity fund.
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