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The palace was first conceived as a hunting lodge by Charles III, but the plans grew into a three-storey structure set in a 7-sq km (2.5-sq mile) park.

Most of the earliest Italian art in the museum was acquired in the 19th and 20th centuries. Important works include Simone Martini’s lavish Gothic masterpiece San Ludovico di Tolosa .

Powerful works here include Botticelli’s Madonna with Child and Angels and Bellini’s sublimeTransfiguration .

Here you’ll find a serene Assumption of the Virgin by Pinturicchio, an Assumption by Fra’ Bartolomeo and works by Titian and Raphael.

Strongest of all the works here is Caravaggio’s Flagellation of Christ and Artemisia Gentileschi’s horrifying Judith and Holofernes .

Neapolitan artist Francesco Solimena is well represented here, most especially by his opulent portrait of a courtier, Principe Tarsia Spinelli. Other canvases provide us with period views of Naples and its bay and other scenes, including one of Vesuvius in eruption by Pierre-Jacques-Antoine Volaire.

This parlour was designed for Queen Maria Amalia. Painted and gilded porcelain assumes the shapes of festoons, musical instruments and figurative scenes.

Sketches and studies by some of the greatest artists can be seen here, including works by Fra’ Bartolomeo, Raphael and Michelangelo.

The palace is replete with decorative arts, from ivory carvings to tapestries, to 18th- and 19th-century furniture made for the royal family.

History paintings and landscapes, by local and visiting artists, dominate this part of the collection. Especially endearing are the sculptures of street urchins by Vincenzo Gemito, but the signature modern work is a complete departure – Andy Warhol’s cheerfully garish Vesuvius .