Restoration of the Fontana della Fortuna at the Royal Palace of Naples Completed

The restoration of the Fontana della Fortuna has been completed and from today will be visible again in the Courtyard of Honor of the Royal Palace of Naples, directed by Mario Epifani. The works were led by Barbara Balbi, a restoration officer of the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape of Naples and coordinated by Almerinda Padricelli, an architect of the Palace. The restoration work was carried out in less than three months, within a construction site visible to the public, including children who were able to follow the work through windows specially created in the site fencing. A technical seminar preceded the inauguration, in which all the phases of the restoration were illustrated by the work director Barbara Balbi, with the projection of images that documented it. It was a very delicate restoration - stated Barbara Balbi - because, even if the conservative conditions appeared fair, some functional elements had suffered serious damage to the precious stone material. A team effort was carried out that included the integrated execution of the conservative, functional, and aesthetic part. With this intervention, the project to restore the fountains of the Palace was concluded, which in July 2023 restored the ancient splendor to the Oval Fountain in the Courtyard of the Carriages, at the entrance of the Caruso Museum inaugurated last summer. Both fountains have been equipped with a new recirculation system, made by Top Impianti srl, which will allow to contain water consumption. The restoration works of the fountains with their hydraulic systems were financed by the Strategic Plan 'Great Cultural Heritage Projects' of the MIC for an amount of about 140 thousand euros - highlighted the architect Almerinda Padricelli, project manager - adding, in addition to the enhancement of the artifact, a further piece to the energy-saving program that is one of the objectives of the management of the Royal Palace. The Fontana della Fortuna, with the statue that gives it its name, is located in a large niche in the center of the eastern side of the Courtyard of Honor, in line with the main entrance from Piazza del Plebiscito. This fountain had been restored in 1994 thanks to the contribution of the Mario Brancaccio Cultural Association - tells the director of the Royal Palace, Mario Epifani - The new intervention falls within the objective of a requalification of the Courtyard of Honor, which will become the reception center of the museum: right behind the fountain, the new ticket office with the Museum of the Factory, introductory to the visit of the Palace, will be inaugurated shortly. The Fontana della Fortuna, created as part of the works directed by the architect Gaetano Genovese in the mid-19th century, features an elongated basin adorned with palmette motifs against the wall; on a polygonal pedestal stands a wide bowl decorated with elegant bearded mascarons crowned with flowers. At the top is the statue of Fortuna holding a cornucopia and a rudder, sculpted by Giuseppe Canart for the fountain of the Molo Grande on commission of Carlo di Borbone in 1742 and later placed in this position in the 1940s.