Palazzo of Sangro
di Casacalenda
The Palazzo of Sangro di
Casacalenda is the building that closes the
southern side of the square of San Domenico Maggiore
in the historic center of Naples (#16 on this map). It was commissioned
by Lucio di Sangro, the duke of Casacalenda and was
built in the second half of the 1700s; the construction
was started by Mario Gioffredo and finished by Luigi Vanvitelli.
Any building from the mere 1700s in the old city
obviously was built on top of something else, and such
is the case with the Palazzo Casacalenda. For the duke
to build his home, he had to first remove what was left
of a paleo-Christian
church on the site, that of Santa Maria della Rotonda. Earlier
construction on the large San Domenico plague column in the
center of the square also revealed the remnants of
ancient walls of the city, of a city gate named Porta
Puteolana [still the adjective for the modern town of Pozzuoli], and of a
presumed temple to the Roman goddess, Vesta. In 1922,
construction to widen via
Mezzocannone, the road that comes up from the
port area on the east end of Palazzo Casacalenda made it
necessary to lop off an entire part of the
building. (Before that, the square could not be
accessed on that street by vehicle.)
There are still frescoes within the Palazzo
Casacalenda by Fedele
Fischetti (1734-1789), a Neapolitan painter now
regarded as somewhat of a minor artist, but whose works
nevertheless adorn a number of sites in the area,
including the Capodimonte
Palace, the Royal
Palace, and the Palace
of Caserta. As is the case with many other
large buildings in the historic center, it is difficult
to stand back and look at this large classical facade
and think that the building was at one time the
residence of a single family, but it was. In the
immediate area on the square, some of the buildings now
house university spaces and some, such as this one,
Palazzo Casacalenda, are given over to small shops at
street level with the upper stories subdivided into
private apartments.
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