Reggia di Caserta

The Palace of Caserta, in Italian Reggia di Caserta, is a royal palace in Caserta, near Naples, built for the Borbone kings of Naples. It was the largest palace and probably the largest building erected in Europe in the eighteenth century. In 1996, the Palace of Caserta was listed among the World Heritage Sites on the grounds that it was "the swan song of the spectacular art of the Baroque, from which it adopted all the features needed to create the illusions of multidirectional space".
The construction of the palace was begun in 1752 for Charles VII of Naples, who worked closely with his architect Luigi Vanvitelli. When Charles saw Vanvitelli's grandly-scaled model for Caserta it filled him with emotion "fit to tear his heart from his breast". In the end, he never slept a night at the Reggia, as he resigned from the throne in 1759 to become King of Spain, and the project was carried to completion for his third son and successor, Ferdinand IV of Naples.