Italy Guide
Campania
Museo Civico
Opening time: Mon– Sat 9am–7pm
Price: €5
Address: Palazzo Municipale
The Museo Civico incorporates the ground floor Capella Palatina, with its fourteenth- to sixteenth-century frescoes, Renaissance sculptures and fifteenth-century marble portal and rose window, and a couple of floors of paintings and sculpture – take a look at the original bronze doors from 1468 which show scenes from Ferdinand of Aragon's struggle against the local barons. The cannonball wedged in the lower left-hand panel dates from a naval battle in 1495 between the French and the Genoese that took place while the former were pillaging the doors from the castle. On the upper floor are some nice nineteenth century scenes of Naples, but it's probably the views over the port from the upper terrace that steal the show – that and the Sala dei Baroni, accessed from the courtyard, a huge room with magnificent umbrella-ribbed vaults that were once covered in frescoes by Giotto (sadly lost).