Villa Favorita, or more exactly the Real Villa della Favorita, is one of the most sumptuous eighteenth-century Vesuvian villas. It stands in Ercolano on the stretch of corso Resina known as the Miglio d'Oro and was designed by Ferdinando Fuga on an earlier lodge belonging to the family of the dukes of Simeri.
What to see
In 1768 the villa hosted a lavish reception for the young sovereigns Ferdinand and Maria Carolina of Austria, just married: according to the sources it reminded the queen of Schönbrunn, and from then on it was called «Favorita». In 1792 it passed to King Ferdinand IV, who moved the Naval Officers' Academy there; in 1799 it was restored and the park was extended to the sea, with a landing stage where the king disembarked on 27 June 1802 on his return from Palermo. His second son Leopold, Prince of Salerno, added a new wing, stables and storerooms, and filled the park with rides and fashionable amusements, such as swings shaped like a horse, a boat and a chair and the «Palazzina delle montagne russe» with wooden slides; on feast days he opened the villa to his subjects. Between 1879 and 1885 Ismail Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt who had inaugurated the Suez Canal, lived here in exile, and some rooms on the first floor were decorated in Arab style.
The façade on corso Resina has two storeys marked by paired pilasters, two side portals in piperno and, at the centre, the window of the elliptical salon opening onto a balcony with coats of arms. The most remarkable feature is at the back: a large semicircular stone staircase links the terrace in front of the elliptical salon to the park. The interior decoration reflects the tastes of the various owners, with Chinese-style rooms on the second floor; the views of the Kingdom's ports painted by Philipp Hackert between 1787 and 1797 were taken to the Royal Palace of Caserta in 1879, and the mosaic floor of the salon, from the villa of Tiberius on Capri, is now in the Capodimonte Museum. The park, with fishponds and Moorish kiosks, is the largest historic green space on the Vesuvian coast after that of the Royal Palace of Portici.
Visiting
The villa is on corso Resina, in Ercolano. In the twentieth century it belonged to the Princess of Santobuono until 1936, then to the State, and housed a Salesian boarding school for war orphans and a Prison Police training school. Opening hours and visiting arrangements should be checked with the Ente per le Ville Vesuviane.
Our editors' tip
Do not miss the Parco sul Mare, the lower part of the park, cut off in the sixties by via Gabriele D'Annunzio and now laid out as lawn and holm-oak wood: here is the Palazzina dei Mosaici, its walls covered with shards of mother-of-pearl and porcelain, and a passage under the railway leads to the Bourbon landing, with two turreted coffee houses and a pier rebuilt in 1989 and restored in 2004.
