Baia Castle, Bacoli, Italy - SpottingHistory.com

The late 15th century Baia Castle was built by the over ancient Roman ruins thought to be the summer residence of Julius Caesar. On the 29th September 1538 the great eruption, with devastating effects for all the Phlegraean Fieldsi, caused serious damage to the Castle of Baia too. The castle was restored and enlarged by the viceroy don Pedro Alvarez de Toledo.

Today, this cliffside Aragonese castle with sea views is home to the Archaeological Museum of Campi Flegrei.

User Reviews

Amber (11 months ago)
A cool place to visit off the beaten path. Usually, I'm among the few visitors here. They have artifacts from the underwater archeology park, and the castle is neat

Charles Hammerstein (12 months ago)
Fascinating, well preserved. Immense museum.

BRANDON AHIMOVIC (13 months ago)
Disgusting short hours, continusly attempts to cut people out early. The staff will insult you if they assume if you don't know Italian.

Carlo Salvatore Duncan (2 years ago)
Interesting museum of the Campi Flegrei area inside the Castle, and breathtaking view of the Naples bay.

Geraldine Coles (2 years ago)
Stunning views. Quiet & serene location. Amazing catalogue of artwork. Definitely worth a visit

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Photo from Flickr, copyright Frans.Sellies

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Kromeriz Castle and Gardens

Kroměříž stands on the site of an earlier ford across the River Morava. The gardens and castle of Kroměříž are an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a European Baroque princely residence and its gardens and described as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The first residence on the site was founded by bishop Stanislas Thurzo in 1497. The building was in a Late Gothic style, with a modicum of Renaissance detail. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was sacked by the Swedish army (1643).

It was not until 1664 that a bishop from the powerful Liechtenstein family charged architect Filiberto Lucchese with renovating the palace in a Baroque style. The chief monument of Lucchese's work in Kroměříž is the Pleasure Garden in front of the castle. Upon Lucchese's death in 1666, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla completed his work on the formal garden and had the palace rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the Turinese school to which he belonged.

After the castle was gutted by a major fire in March 1752, Bishop Hamilton commissioned two leading imperial artists, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and Josef Stern, arrived at the residence in order to decorate the halls of the palace with their works. In addition to their paintings, the palace still houses an art collection, generally considered the second finest in the country, which includes Titian's last mythological painting, The Flaying of Marsyas. The largest part of the collection was acquired by Bishop Karel in Cologne in 1673. The palace also contains an outstanding musical archive and a library of 33,000 volumes.

UNESCO lists the palace and garden among the World Heritage Sites. As the nomination dossier explains, 'the castle is a good but not outstanding example of a type of aristocratic or princely residence that has survived widely in Europe. The Pleasure Garden, by contrast, is a very rare and largely intact example of a Baroque garden'. Apart from the formal parterres there is also a less formal nineteenth-century English garden, which sustained damage during floods in 1997.

Interiors of the palace were extensively used by Miloš Forman as a stand-in for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace during filming of Amadeus (1984), based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who actually never visited Kroměříž. The main audience chamber was also used in the film Immortal Beloved (1994), in the piano concerto scene.

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