The National Library is placed in the eastern wing of the Royal Palace, that is the part that was added in the eighteenth century by Ferdinando Fuga to the previous square layout by Domenico Fontana. You enter the Library through the nineteenth century garden that the famous botanist Denhardt designed in the area of the riding stables. Also the imposing marble staircases to the Library probably is of the same age.
The present Room is one of four that together with the large dance hall - today a reading room - were the party Halls In the Book collection Hall tempera ovates on plaster by Camillo Guerra represent the Allegories of the Man's four ages like four love ages: Spring: Zephyirus and Flora, Summer: Galatea, Autumn: Bacchus and Arianna, Winter: Orizia and Borea; they represent the picture development of the extreme Neapolitan neoclassicism.
In the rooms upstairs where once were the nineteenth century Apartments, there is Pompeian style decorations. In the north-eastern wing there is the Palatine Library to which the King's Scientific cabinet was connected. In the Reading Room on the first floor you find the walnut and golden wardrobes of "Sala della Meridiana" in the Palace of the Studies, made between 1737 and the eighteenth century sixties.
The library numbers many collections: The section of manuscripts and rare texts, such as the famous Farnese Collection, Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi, which contributes to know the History of papyruses and, through pictures, provides further elements of inquiry for studying the texts; the section Lucchesi-Palli that aims to be a modern show and communication library and so taking into account no only theatre, but also music, cinema, television, and even, to some extent, fashion, photography, new media and information technologies.

Naples National Library
Piazza del Plebiscito, 1

Tel: 081.7819231; 081.7819387
web: www.bnnonline.it
Closed on Sundays
Open: Mon to Fri - Hours: 8.30 a.m. - 7.30 p.m. - Saturdays : 8.30 a.m.- 1.30 p.m.
Tickets fares: Free entrance with ID card.