"The Riding school” in Royal Palace of Naples: transformations in the timber covering structure

In the course of a larger research program aiming at the knowledge of historical developing of carpentry in the Neapolitan region, from eleventh to nineteenth centuries, and especially at studying evolution of building technology, an accurate survey is going on in the archives held by numerous city institutions. In the Historical Archive of the City of Naples, an unpublished document (ASN Busta n. 2154) has been found which constitutes the fulcrum of the present paper, and has revealed of great interest to give a deeper insight in technological means at the beginning of nineteenth century in the field of timber truss carpentry. It is an estimative metrical evaluation, with illustrative plates and explaining documents attached, which was the detailed relation on the re-making of the covering structures of a building pertaining to the Royal Palace of Naples, made by the architect and scenographer Antonio Niccolini (1772-1850). Born in 1772 at San Miniato, he had already reached a good notoriety working in Livorno, Pistoia and Florence, before coming in Naples in 1810, where he died in 1850. Here he carried on very important jobs as designer and works director, in which he showed his great scenographer ability in designing the wonderful Floridiana Park, rich of prestigious architectonical works, or the monumental stairs of Capodimonte Royal Palace, and also the numerous transformations of Bourbon Royal Palace and the annexed St. Charles Theatre. These last works gave him fame as the most important theatre decorator in Italy in the first half of nineteenth century. During the realization of these transformations, he thought to allocate the scene machinery in the attic of a building contiguous to the theatre, used as Royal Riding School, and at this aim he built a new covering system. The found document is a detailed description of this construction, at the scope of its economical quantification. All works needed for the dismantling of the existing coverings, the realization of the new structures, partially reemploying timber elements of the demolished structures, and provisional meanings, are reported with plenty of details, with special reference to working techniques and jointing technologies. Basing upon this document, the analysis of Niccolini’s design for the new timber structures of the Riding School has been possible, from a technological as well as structural point of view, comparing the new trusses with the existing ones which he dismantled, and with other timber covering structures still existing in other spaces of Naples Royal Palace, dating at the same period. In conclusion a noteworthy constructive knowledge can be recognized to Niccolini in facing the special service conditions due to the new functions to be assigned to the attic.