«Il restauro deve fermarsi dove ha inizio l’ipotesi». Ricostruzioni e restauri della Cappella Palatina nel Palazzo Reale di Napoli

1943 was the annus horribilis for Naples and its cultural heritage: the bombings of World War II devastated most of the city’s monuments. The Palatine Chapel in the Royal Palace, specifically, was the subject of drastic post-war reconstruction that, to erase the horrors of the war, led to the restoration of elements traceable to the eighteenth- century facies to the detriment of the built palimpsest. Moreover, the Royal Chapel was interested by further restoration works during the last two decades of the 20th century, that, compared to the post-war interventions, presented a completely different methodological and technical approach to the building heritage. Starting from these premises, the contribution the contribution aims at interpreting – using unpublished archival and iconographic sources – the main transformation works that interested the Neapolitan Royal Chapel in relation to the principles of intervention disseminated in 1964 by the Venice Charter. Specifically, the research aims to investigate the relationship between the modus operandi fielded in the construction of the royal palimpsest before and after the issuing of the Venetian document. In particular, the study wants to focus on the relation between the transformation works on the one hand, with the principle of recognisability of the intervention (art. 9), with reference to the post-war reconstruction; on the other hand, in relation to the use of contemporary construction techniques (art. 10), with reference to the rebuilt of the great vault.