A Palace without a king
When the Palace was constructed in 1600, Naples had no King. Since 1503, in fact, the city and the rest of the kingdom of which it was the splendid capital had lost its independence to the Spanish forces led by the condottiero Consalvo de Cordova, known as El Gran Capitan. For two centuries the Kingdom of Naples became an Iberian colony under the dominion of the ruling houses of Spain, first the Hapsburgs then the Bourbons. The viceregal government of Naples was given in turn, for periods of varying length, to trusted men of the court chosen from the Spanish aristocracy.
In 1600, the viceroy Fernando Ruiz de Castro, Count of Lemos, arranged the construction of the Royal Palace to mark the planned visit of King Philip III of Spain, a visit that subsequently never took place.
Around 1630, after lengthy works, the palace became the permanent residence of the viceroy.
The palace
The splendid building of the Royal Palace in Naples was begun in 1600 for one of the largest and most populous capitals of the Spanish empire. At first inhabited by the Spanish viceroys, by Austrians, Bourbons and then by the Savoys, the palace was the centre and image of power as well as the heart of the historic events of Naples and the south of Italy for almost four centuries.
The project was entrusted by the viceroy, Fernando Ruiz de Castro Count of Lemos, to the architect Domenico Fontana, who erected a late Renaissance-style building. The original square body was enlarged a century later with the New Wing desired by Charles of Bourbon. After a fire, in the nineteenth century Ferdinand II Bourbon carried out a radical reorganisation of the building.
The restoration, executed by the architect Gaetano Genovese, enlarged and made the old palace more regular, without though changing it too much, giving it a uniform architectural appearance. In those years the Wing of Festivities was created and a new façade towards the sea with a high rusticated base and a slim belvedere-tower.
Fontana was responsible for the extremely long Mannerist façade on Piazza del Plebiscito. At the end of the nineteenth century the external niches were occupied by giant statues of the kings of Naples, the first of the respective dynasties: Roger the Norman, Frederick II of Swabia, Charles I of Anjou, Alfonso I of Aragon, Charles V of Hapsburg, Charles III of Bourbon, Gioacchino Murat, and Victor Emanuel II of Savoy. The Savoy arms can be seen under the royal balcony while the arms of the viceroys can be seen on the façade.
The personage
Ferdinand IV
Ferdinand IV of Bourbon (Naples 1751-1825) 
marked the history of Naples in a crucial period for the kingdom. His rule lasted a good sixty-five years, through revolutions, wars and coup d’états.
The third son of Charles III, king of Spain, and Maria Amelia of Saxony, he came to the throne in 1759 when his father abdicated in order to succeed to the Spanish crown. Since Ferdinand was only eight years old at the time, a regency was instituted until he was sixteen under the marquis Bernardo Tanucci, while one of his tutors, Domenico Cattaneo, was nominated prince of San Nicandro.
He was king of Naples with the name of Ferdinand IV, king of Sicily as Ferdinand III and, finally, took the title of Ferdinand I with the creation of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Onl 7 April 1768 he married by proxy Maria Carolina of Austria, obeying an agreement between his father and the empress Maria Theresa conceived to strengthen ties between Spain and Austria. On the birth of their first male child, in 1775, as foreseen by the marriage contract, Carolina was given a place on the Council of State, shifting the kingdom’s political choices from Spanish to Austrian-English influence.
In the first phase of his rule, ending with the revolutionary activities of 1799, king Ferdinand continued along the previously delineated path of moderate reform. The episode of the Neapolitan republic, however, marked a true break made even deeper by the long interval of the French decade in Naples, which saw the Bourbons exiled to Palermo.
After their return to Naples in 1816, thanks to the Restoration sanctioned by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Ferdinand carried out a policy of repression. He died in 1825 leaving the kingdom to his son Francis.