Palazzo Zevallos and the Gallery of Entertainment

The building was commissioned by Giovanni Zevallos, a wealthy Spanish merchant who, in 1635, entrusted its construction to Cosimo Fanzago for his family.

In the heart of the Neapolitan city, in the historic centre of Naples, on Via Toledo, stands a celebrated monumental palace.
This is Palazzo Zevallos, or Palazzo Colonna di Stigliano, also known as Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano.
Adding to the building's importance is the presence, inside it, of the eponymous museum Gallery owned by the Intesa San Paolo group, opened in 2007, which forms part of the Gallerie d'Italia (Galleries of Italy).

The history

The building was commissioned by Giovanni Zevallos, a wealthy Spanish merchant who, in 1635, entrusted Cosimo Fanzago with its construction for his family.
At the end of the century, it passed into the hands of a second wealthy dynasty, this time Italian, that of the Colonna di Stigliano, also important enough to be mentioned in the building's name.
Various well-to-do owners then took turns over time as owners of the building or of parts of it, dividing it up.
With the arrival of the twentieth century, however, the Banca Commerciale Italiana began buying up the various sections that had been created, reuniting the palace into a single whole.

The structure

The building's history, passed from hand to hand, from culture to culture, has given it a blend of styles and tastes.
At the time of the Bank's unification of the property, Luigi Platania was entrusted with the task of making it harmonious, giving it a liberty tone, with a Baroque and nineteenth-century flavour.
Today it presents a majestic portal depicting the noble coats of arms of the time, beyond which one finds a hall in an eclectic style decorated with wall paintings by Ezechiele Guardascione and covered by a decorated skylight.
The central hall allows access to the upper floor, known as the piano nobile (main floor), by means of a monumental grand staircase, in nineteenth-century style, enriched with large lamps and gilded stuccoes. The vault and the walls are also decorated, representing a classic example of the building's heterogeneity, being in different styles.
The floor before us is the one that makes up the famous Gallery, which boasts 120 works, arranged chronologically through the various rooms — from the Room of the Cherubs to the Room of the Stuccoes, passing through the Room of the Birds, then reaching the Pompeian Room, ending with the Room of Fidelity — reproducing the history of Neapolitan art from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, with particular attention to the school of Posillipo and Resina (the foremost representatives of landscape painting in Naples at the time).

Hidden among the multitude of rooms is the work that, more than any other, brings renown to the building: the Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, a silent legacy left to the Campanian capital by a great artist, the last work of Caravaggio, produced just a few weeks before his death, in 1610.

The worldly Gallery

The Gallery of Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, moreover, is not confined to a cold display of art, but presents itself as a dynamic and versatile protagonist of the social and cultural life of Naples, made a centre of interest by the many events it organises and promotes.

Making the most of the wonderful location it enjoys, it indeed becomes the venue for scheduled appointments that intertwine with concerts hosted among statues and paintings, sometimes different ones, the result of temporary exhibitions permitted there with the approval of the cultural institutions.