Castelluccia

Castelluccia is an articulated complex of gardens and architecture built in 1769, dominated by an octagonal pavilion. The architect Francesco Collecini went to modify the ancient Torre Pernesta – an early seventeenth-century casino, built by Prince Andrea Matteo Acquaviva for his wife Francesca Pernestain – following Luigi Vanvitelli’s design:. Surrounded by monumental magnolias, palms and araucarias, the Bourbon castle was conceived as a place of learning and recreation. Among its fortifications, the military trainings of the young King Ferdinand IV took place. It’s only when it was revisited as a place of delights in 1818, that it took on its current neoclassical forms. The subsequent addition of a Chinese-style kiosk bears witness to the nineteenth-century fascination for the Far East.