Serre di Graefer (Bourbon Greenhouses), Reggia di Caserta

The English Garden of the Reggia di Caserta was begun in 1785 for Queen Maria Carolina, wife of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, on the suggestion of the British envoy William Hamilton. The work was entrusted to the botanist and gardener Johann Andreas Graefer, in collaboration with the architect Carlo Vanvitelli, and was paid for from the queen's personal fortune. Graefer and his sons ran hot and cold houses, carried out acclimatisation experiments, sold seeds and plants and published catalogues of the species they grew. Plants were also supplied to other royal residences.

The complex grew during the 19th century. The Serra Grande was designed in 1862-1863 not far from the two 18th-century greenhouses; the Italian heritage catalogue dates it to 1862, while the Reggia's own website credits the design to Terracciano. An iron-and-glass house was added late in the century, followed by an air-conditioned house in the 1980s. Long neglected, the greenhouses were restored and reopened in 2024 after more than eight years of closure, within the project 'Le Serre di Graefer', which brings the Reggia together with local enterprises.

The 18th-century Bourbon greenhouses are masonry buildings covered by barrel vaults; they still show traces of the former heating systems and of the fittings used to tend the plants. Sources disagree on how many buildings there are: the Reggia's website mentions four greenhouses, three of them historic, one press article describes three buildings (Serra Grande, Serra Media, Serra Piccola), and the reopening coverage speaks of four Bourbon greenhouses.

The Serra Grande, a free-standing rectangular building with outbuildings, has walls and piers of regular tuff blocks under smooth plaster. Its corners carry giant paired Tuscan pilasters beneath a projecting cornice, and the interior is finished in marble-effect stucco. The pavilion-shaped roof rests on a metal truss frame and is glazed. A semi-basement level, barrel-vaulted and set on continuous tuff foundations, is reached by a secondary stair of three flights. The late 19th-century house, known as the begonia house, is built of iron and glass.

The 18th-century houses sheltered the queen's exotic plants and later local and foreign species propagated for sale, including through a court catalogue. Modern wood-fired boilers now allow conditions suited to exotic species to be recreated. The 19th-century iron-and-glass house holds begonias and succulents, while the air-conditioned house of the 1980s is used for varied cultivation.

Outdoors, two Chorisia speciosa trees survive; their seed pods once supplied a cottony fibre used by local industry. The beds include a rose garden and camellia plantings that flower from December to May, and a water-lily pool with a sculpture of a putto riding a newt. Since the reopening, rare plants have been offered for sale in reference to the Bourbon horticultural trade, and works by the artist Danilo Ambrosino draw on 19th-century botanical catalogues.

The greenhouses stand in the English Garden, the landscaped part of the Reggia di Caserta park. The garden deserves a walk of its own: the Bath of Venus, the cryptoporticus with its statues, the English-style house where Graefer lived and the Aperia, a former reservoir turned greenhouse in 1826 and now an open-air theatre, line the route. The camellias flower from December to May, a good moment for the beds. Since the reopening the Reggia has hosted family workshops, sales of rare plants and concerts here. A visit combines naturally with the palace and the Italian-style gardens.