CASERTA ITALY – Caserta, April 2, 2026. The grand staircase of the Palazzo Reale di Caserta, commissioned by Charles III of Bourbon in 1752 and designed by Luigi Vanvitelli. By floor area it is among the largest royal palaces in the world. Charles was the grandson of Philip V of Spain, himself the grandson of Louis XIV — which explains why Caserta, Versailles, and Schönbrunn feel like variations on the same dynastic dream.
A comparison to Piranesi is not a stretch. Vanvitelli and Piranesi were near-exact contemporaries — both born in the first decade of the eighteenth century, both steeped in Roman antiquity, both drawn to architectural space as a subject in itself. Piranesi’s Vedute di Roma and his studies of ancient monuments share with Vanvitelli’s interiors the same appetite for axial recession, compressed verticals, and arches framing arches into apparent infinity. The Carceri d’Invenzione push that grammar toward the irrational, but the underlying spatial language is the same one Vanvitelli deployed in earnest. Standing at the base of this staircase, you feel the kinship without needing to argue for direct influence.
Day 6,015 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back exactly 8 years to New York. A spring snowstorm out my window. The water towers hold their ground while the city dissolves behind them. Day 3099 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
