Fresh and healthy air, a splendid view of the gulf, as green as the setting of an eighteenth-century villa: there were all the conditions for it to be an ideal holiday residence. And they convinced King Ferdinand I that it was worth buying that property on the southern edge of the Vomero hill to present it to the Duchess of Floridia Lucia Migliaccio, his morganatic wife.
It was 1816 and shortly thereafter the renovation of the building began, the direction of which was entrusted to the architect Niccolini, who had to completely transform it into the neoclassical style then in vogue. The rearrangement of the green areas also proceeded at the same pace, by the then director of the botanical garden Friederich Dehnhardt. After three years of work, in 1819 the work was completed and the result were two villas, Villa Floridia and Villa Lucia, and in the park an outdoor theater, a small temple with Doric columns and a dome, fountains, statues, fake ruins . On the death of the duchess, the property was sold to private individuals. In 1919 it was bought by the state. In 1931 the extraordinary collection of ceramics that the Duke of Martina had donated to the city of Naples arrived in the villa now known as Floridiana. The National Museum of Duca di Martina Ceramics was born with about six thousand precious pieces of various eras and styles of both European and Eastern origin.
Having become a public park, with.a green heritage of 150 vegetal species, the Villa Floridia is open all year round. Thanks to its lucky hilly exposure, it offers a magnificent panorama over the gulf of Naples.
Information:
Open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Full price ticket: 2.50 €
Reduced ticket: 1.25 €
