Un escenario italiano para los gobernantes españoles. El nuevo palacio de los virreyes de Nápoles (1599-1653)

Abstract

In light of the need to visually represent power and in anticipation of King Philip III’s visit to Naples, the Viceroy Count de Lemos decided, in 1600, to construct a new palace. The building, designed and constructed by Domenico Fontana who also created the new Rome of Sixto V, was the result of an alliance between the communicative possibilities of Italian artistic visual vocabulary and the political necessities of the Spanish Monarchy. The frescoes, which decorated some of the main halls, depicted the construction of the Empire and a justification of its presence in Italy.