Giovanni Antonio Medrano - architect and engineer

Designed Teatro di San Carlo and Palace of Capodimonte in Naples

Medrano revolutionised theatre design with his
horseshoe-shaped auditorium at Teatro di San Carlo

The architect and engineer Giovanni Antonio Medrano, who left a lasting mark on Naples by designing the Teatro di San Carlo and the Royal Palace at Capodimonte while in the service of the Bourbon king Charles VII - later Charles III of Spain - was born on this day in 1703 in Sciacca, a town on the southwestern coast of Sicily.

Teatro di San Carlo, which is recognised as the oldest continuously active opera house in the world, set new standards for European theatre design with Medrano’s horseshoe-shaped layout and attention to acoustics.

His design became known as the Italian-style theatre model and was taken up by architects around the world as the gold standard for new projects. The San Carlo became a symbol of Bourbon prestige and remains one of his most enduring legacies.

Medrano, born into a noble Sicilian-Spanish family, was stationed in Naples as a military engineer and brigadier having taken part in the Spanish military campaign to conquer Naples in 1734. This campaign was part of the War of the Polish Succession, which had broadened into a wider conflict after the Bourbons used it as a pretext to attack Austrian territories in southern Italy and Sicily.

When the Spanish prince Don Carlos de Borbón became Charles VII of Naples in 1735, he appointed Medrano - his former tutor in the court of his father, Philip V of Spain - as his court architect, with a brief to design and oversee major royal projects that symbolised Bourbon authority and magnificence.

One of his first projects was to renovate the Royal Palace that adjoins the Piazza del Plebiscito, designed by Domenico Fontana and built between 1600 and 1614 on behalf of the Bourbon king Philip III. Medrano’s work was mainly focussed on readying the royal apartments ahead of the new king’s marriage to Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Medrano's Teatro di San Carlo, as it appeared in
a painting of the centre of Naples in around 1830

The project to construct a theatre connected to the palace essentially followed on from that after Charles VII decided he wanted to replace the Teatro San Bartolomeo, which had been the city’s main theatre since 1621, with something much bigger and which would reflect the growing status of Naples as a centre for opera. 

The Real Teatro di San Carlo was built in just eight months, partially helped by Medrano’s use of wood rather than stone in the internal construction. This choice was initially controversial, as traditionalists favoured stone or marble, symbols of permanence and royal prestige, but Medrano argued that wood reflects and diffuses sound more evenly than stone, giving rise to a clearer, warmer tone.

What set the Teatro di San Carlo apart, though, was Medrano’s horseshoe-shaped layout with its six tiers of boxes. Unlike previous theatre designs, which were either based on the semi-circular footprint of Roman auditoriums, or rectangular layouts similar to medieval banqueting halls, Medrano’s design wrapped the audience around the stage, enhancing the acoustics and allowing almost all spectators a view of the performers.

After the Teatro di San Carlo was inaugurated in November 1737, with a performance of Domenico Sarro's opera Achille in Sciro, the horseshoe design became the standard for new theatres in Europe and around the world.

Medrano’s wide architectural legacy includes the Royal Palace of Portici, built between 1737 and 1738 as a summer residence for the royal family, with views over the Bay of Naples. 

Medrano also designed and built the Royal Palace
of Portici, a summer residence overlooking the sea

The palace later became central to the excavations of Herculaneum, the Roman city that had been buried by the same volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in 79AD. The existence of ruins beneath the planned site of the palace was already known, marble having been discovered during the sinking of a well in 1709, but after more remains were revealed as the foundations were dug for the palace, Charles VII ordered more organised excavations, which Medrano oversaw.

The vast Reggia di Capodimonte, which Charles commissioned in 1738 after deciding the Portici palace was too small, was also designed by Medrano. Work began under Medrano’s direction but took over a century to complete, finishing in 1840.

Other projects attributed to Medrano include the Di Torcini bridge, which crossed the Volturno river at Venafro, north of Naples, and the Obelisk of Bitonto, which commemorates the decisive Bourbon victory over the Habsburg army at the town of the same name, near Bari in Puglia. 

Despite his successes, Medrano’s career was marred by controversy. In 1741, he and his associate Angelo Carasale were accused of fraud in tax dealings related to Capodimonte’s construction. The long trail was a contributing factor in delaying the work at Capodimonte.

The charges led to an 18-month jail sentence, after which Medrano was dismissed from his position at the court and exiled. Though he eventually returned to Naples, in 1746, and carried out renovations at the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, a church on via Portamedina in the centre of Naples, his reputation never fully recovered.

After the inauguration of the choir in the church in 1754, there is no record of Medrano being active professionally again. He died in 1760, at the age of 56. 

The Reggia di Capodimonte, another Bourbon palace,
now houses a major museum of Italian art

Travel tip:

The Reggia di Capodimonte, which Charles VII commissioned to house both his expanding court and the vast Farnese art collection, which he had inherited from his mother, Elisabetta Farnese, is a grand Bourbon royal palace a few kilometres from the centre of Naples.  Adjoining an area of woodland now known as the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, it was originally intended to be a hunting lodge but evolved as a replacement for the Reggia di Portici.  Its location was chosen because its elevated position - capo di monte literally means ‘top of the hill’ - promised an escape from the heat of the city. Although it has subsequently become part of greater Naples, at the time of its construction it was surrounded by parkland. Nowadays, the main building is home to the National Museum of Capodimonte, which showcases major works by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Giovanni Bellini, Masaccio, Lorenzo Lotto and many others, as well as the best collection of paintings from the distinct tradition of Neapolitan art, and many works of monumental sculpture from the Farnese Collection.

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Some parts of Herculaneum are
extraordinarily well preserved

Travel tip:

Until 1969, the town now called Ercolano was known as Resina, the name given to the medieval settlement that was built on top of the volcanic material left by the eruption of Vesuvius that also destroyed nearby Pompeii.  The existence of Ercolano - the Roman city of Herculaneum - was not known until the early 18th century, when a farmer sinking a well came across ancient marble columns which, it transpired, were part of an ancient theatre.  Systematic exploration followed under the patronage of Charles VII, the Bourbon king of Naples, from the 1730s to the 1760s.  Charles was more concerned with treasure-hunting than archaeology, but under Giovanni Antonio Medrano’s supervision statues and frescoes were uncovered as well as the famous Villa of the Papyri, with its extraordinary library of carbonized papyrus scrolls. Ercolano was smaller and less prestigious than Pompeii but is better preserved due to the different volcanic materials that covered the town, although its more famous neighbour was a bigger city and its destruction was particularly well documented.  The ruins at Pompeii and Ercolano can both be reached by using the Circumvesuviana railway, which runs from Naples along the southern stretch of the Bay of Naples, terminating at Sorrento.

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More reading

The Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii

The emperor who came to the aid of the victims

The 19th century archaeologist who saved the relics

Also on this day:

1475: The birth of Pope Leo X

1912: The birth of film producer Carlo Ponti

1944: The birth of veteran pop star Gianni Morandi

1968: The birth of footballer Fabrizio Ravanelli

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Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

Despotic ruler presided over chaos in southern Italy

Ferdinand IV of Naples as a boy, painted by
the German painter Anton Raphel Mengs

The Bourbon prince who would become the first monarch of a revived Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was born in Naples on this day in 1751.

Ferdinando, third son of King Carlos (Charles) III of Spain, was handed the separate thrones of Naples and Sicily when he was only eight years old after his father’s accession to the Spanish throne required him to abdicate his titles in Spanish-ruled southern Italy.

In a 65-year reign, he would preside over one of the most turbulent periods in the history of a region that was never far from upheaval, which would see Spanish rule repeatedly challenged by France before eventually being handed to Austria.

Too young, obviously, to take charge in his own right when his reign began officially in 1759, he continued to enjoy his privileged upbringing, alternating between the palaces his father had built at Caserta, Portici and Capodimonte.

Government was placed in the hands of Bernardo Tanucci, a Tuscan statesman from Stia, near Arezzo, in whom King Charles had complete trust.  Tanucci, who fully embraced the enlightened ideas that were gaining popularity with the educated classes across Europe, had his own ideas about running the two territories, and did little to prepare the boy for the responsibilities he would eventually inherit as Ferdinand IV of Naples and Ferdinand III of Sicily.

Indeed, Tanucci was more than happy to encourage him to pursue the frivolous activities of youth for as long as he wished while he continued the liberal reforms King Charles had set in motion. Ferdinand reached the age of majority in 1767 but was prepared to allow Tanucci to continue to call the shots.

Bernardo Tanucci, the trusted statesman who
governed Naples and Sicily as regent

It all changed, however, in 1768 when Ferdinand married Archduchess Maria Carolina, daughter of the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa and sister of the ill-fated French queen Marie Antoinette.

The marriage was part of a treaty between Spain and Austria, by the terms of which Maria Theresa would be given a place on Tanucci’s governing council once she had produced a male heir to her husband’s crowns.

The new Queen considered herself to be enlightened too but did not care for Tanucci and had her own long-term agenda for Austrian rule over the territory.  She had to wait until 1775 to give birth to a son, following two daughters, but by 1777 had found a reason to dismiss Tanucci.

Maria Carolina dominated Ferdinand, but herself was heavily influenced by Sir John Acton, the English former commander of the naval forces of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, whom she hired to reorganise the Neapolitan navy.

Acton, promising to support Maria Carolina’s wish to free Naples from Spanish rule, was soon appointed commander-in-chief of both the army and the navy and eventually prime minister, much to the disapproval of the Spanish monarchy, who were about to go to war against Britain alongside France.

In the meantime, thanks to Ferdinand’s incompetence and Acton’s manoeuvring for power, Naples was so poorly governed it became clear that something similar to the French Revolution, which had famously toppled the French monarchy, could be about to be repeated in Naples.

Ferdinand aged 22 or 23, again painted by
Anton Raphael Mengs

Not surprisingly, the execution of Marie Antoinette in Paris in 1793 had a profound effect on Maria Carolina. Abandoning all pretence to enlightenment, she persuaded Ferdinand to pledge the Kingdom of Naples to the War of the First Coalition against republican France, while at the same time summarily rounding up anyone in southern Italy suspected of revolutionary intentions.

For the next 23 years, Ferdinand’s forces fought the French in one conflict after another. Obliged the make peace in 1796 when faced with the young commander Napoleon Bonaparte’s march into central Italy, the Bourbon king then enlisted the help of Nelson’s British fleet in the Mediterranean to support a counter march on Rome in 1798.

Driven back rapidly, Ferdinand took flight, leaving Naples in a state of anarchy as he took refuge in Sicily. Bonaparte’s troops soon marched into Naples and in January 1799 established the Parthenopaean Republic.

Ferdinand now turned his attention to rooting out and executing suspected republicans in Palermo, but when Napoleon was forced to send most of his soldiers back to northern Italy, Ferdinand despatched an army led by the ruthless commander Fabrizio Cardinal Ruffo to crush the Parthenopaean Republic and reclaim Naples.

Yet Ferdinand was driven out again six years later when Napoleon’s victories against Austrian and Russian forces in the north allowed him to send another army to Naples, led by his brother Joseph, whom he proclaimed king of Naples and Sicily.

Mengs painted Queen Maria Carolina in
1768, around the time they were married

In fact, Ferdinand remained ruler of Sicily, with British protection, although protection that came at a price that included granting the island a constitutional government and sending Maria Carolina into exile in Austria, where she died in 1814.

Ferdinand made another triumphant return to Naples in 1815 after Joseph Bonaparte’s successor, Joachim Murat, was defeated by the Austrians and Ferdinand was reinstated as King of Naples and Sicily.

Now completely beholden to the Austrians, he abolished Sicily’s constitutional government and declared himself Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, bringing the two kingdoms together as one, as they had been for a brief period in the 15^th century.

But for all Ferdinand’s attempts to eliminate revolutionary elements in Naples and Palermo, the mood for change would not go away, if anything gaining momentum through resentment of the Austrians. After Ferdinand’s death in 1825 the new Kingdom of the Two Sicilies lasted only until 1860, when it was conquered by Giuseppe Garibaldi’s volunteer army to complete Italian Unification.

The facade of the Royal Palace at Portici

Travel tip:

The vast wealth of King Charles enabled him to build lavish palaces around Naples.  Portici, close to the Roman ruins at Ercolano (Herculaneum), was constructed between 1738 and 1742 as a private residence where he could entertain foreign visitors. Today it has a botanical garden that belongs to the University of Naples Federico II and houses the Accademia Ercolanese museum.  The palace at Capodimonte, in the hills above the city, was originally to be a hunting lodge but turned into a much bigger project when Charles realised the Portici palace would not be big enough to house the Farnese art collection be inherited from his mother, Elisabetta Farnese. Today it is home to the Galleria Nazionale (National Gallery), with paintings by Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, Masaccio, Lotto, Bellini, Vasari and many more.  Charles never actually slept in the spectacular Royal Palace at Caserta, modelled on the French royal family’s Palace of Versailles and containing 1,200 rooms, having abdicated before it was completed.

The Piazza Tanucci in the village of Stia

Travel tip:

Stia, the Tuscan village of Bernardo Tanucci’s birth, is the first large community in the path of the Arno, the source of which is in the nearby Monte Falterona. Florence lies some 40km (25 miles) downstream. Situated in the beautiful Casentino valley area around Arezzo, Stia is a charming village in which the unusual triangular main square, which slopes sharply at one end, is named Piazza Tanucci in honour of the statesman. In the square, which has covered arcades of shops and restaurants along each side, can be found the church of Santa Maria della Assunta, which has a 19^th century Baroque façade concealing a well-preserved Romanesque interior that possibly dates back to the late 12^th century.

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