haticesultanas:HISTORY MEME | nine buildings: la Reggia di Caserta“Construction on the royal palace
haticesultanas:HISTORY MEME | nine buildings: la Reggia di Caserta“Construction on the royal palace was begun in 1752, and the first stone was laid by the king on his thirty-sixth birthday, January 20. To mark this occasion, squadrons of cavalry and regiments of infantry were stationed along the perimeter of the future Reggia, and two cannon with artillerymen were placed at each corner. Vanvitelli acted as master of the works during the first twenty years of the construction. Convicts, galley slaves, and an army of free workmen carried the project forward until Charles’s departure for Spain, when the work slowed down considerably. Construction temporarily ground to a complete halt in 1764, during a severe plague and famine, when poor and homeless people occupied the half-finished building.Luigi Vanvitelli died in 1773, when construction was beginning to near completion. His son, Carlo, continued the construction but encountered various difficulties and was unable to complete the building in full accordance with his father’s plan. […] The palace was finally finished in 1774 under Ferdinand I of Naples. Caserta’s five-story palace is rectangular, with four interconnecting courtyards, a sumptuous chapel, 1,200 rooms, a magnificent theatre, and forty-three staircases.[…] During the Risorgimento, the struggle for Italian unification, Caserta’s palace became the headquarters of the nationalist leader Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi. After capturing Naples, Garibaldi prepared at Caserta for his offensive against the army of King Francis II of Naples and for his march on Rome. Although the Reggia was the largest palace in Europe, Garibaldi lived simply and frugally in one of the building’s smallest rooms.[…] After the unification of Italy, the royal palace at Caserta was occasionally visited by the Savoyard kings. Victor Emmanuel III presented the palace to the state in 1921. During World War II, the Reggia served for a time as the headquarters of the Allied High Command. The unconditional surrender of the German forces was signed here on April 29, 1945, and was received by Field Marshall Harold Alexander. — Sharon La Boda, International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe -- source link
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