The magnificent vestiges of Paestum were not far away. And, frequenting that area, King Carlo di Borbone rapidly noticed the great wood of Persano, very rich in game and extending through the plain crossed by Sele and Calore Lucanorivers.

From the top of the promontory towering over the sea, the castle still seems to watch over the island.

That stretch of coast on the slopes of Vesuvius has already conquered at the beginning of the century the d’Elboeuf Duke, Emmanuel Maurice of Lorraine, who asked the architect Ferdinando Sanfelice to build a magnificent villa on the sea. Settled in Portici, the noble of ancient European lineage, after having known about some ancient pieces discovered digging a well in Herculaneum, near his property, had personally dedicated himself to some

Oysters from farms on the other side of the lake and delicious fish caught in the sea, beyond the sandy dune.

It’s the hill that gives the widest and most beautiful view over the Campania Felix. Even without reaching the top.

A superb holm oak wood of 76 hectares remained miraculously intact, just like the Bourbons sovereigns and the court enjoyed it, when they frequented it on occasions of periodic hunting trips. Just outside the Royal Palace, on the hills of Montemaiuolo and Montebriano, from where the great waterfall feeding the park’s waterway descends.

The plain of Capua was well known for its fertility. The land was full of agricultural production. The viceroy Michele Reggio and Branciforte knew it well. In fact, he suggested to Charles of Bourbon to buy some lands there.

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.