The Royal Site of San Leucio
The Royal Site of San Leucio
San Leucio is more than just one of the various “Bourbon sites”: it represented a revolutionary socio-economic institution.
The area was identified by Ferdinand IV in the 1760s, following the completion of the works for the Royal Palace of Caserta. During these years, the young sovereign began to stay more and more often in Caserta, whose surroundings were ideal for his favorite pursuit: hunting.
The Sovereign himself wrote a volume on the subject, titled “Origine della popolazione di San Leucio” (Origin of the Population of San Leucio), printed in 1789, in which we read: «In the magnificent residence of Caserta, begun by my august father and continued by me, I did not find the silence and solitude suitable for meditation and the rest of the spirit; but rather another city in the midst of the countryside, with the same ideas of luxury and magnificence as the capital; so that, seeking a more secluded place that was almost a hermitage, I found the hill of San Leucio suitable. From here, the origins of the colony.»
Having identified the San Leucio reserve, in 1773 he ordered the construction of a building intended for rest during hunts, later called the “Vaccheria.” However, a tragic event occurred in 1778: the Crown Prince Charles Titus died there.
From then on, the two Sovereigns, heartbroken by grief, no longer wished to live there; nevertheless, the King decided to use it otherwise, precisely for the purpose of deriving some useful benefit from it.
Near the Vaccheria stood the ancient baronial lodge of the Acquaviva family. Ferdinand’s idea was brilliant: he entrusted the architect Francesco Collecini, a pupil of Vanvitelli, with the task of expanding and transforming the Belvedere building into a palace-silk mill, and then building a large site of textile mills all around it—a true “industrial city” to be populated by workers, while also establishing laws, labor regulations, and standards of living.
The first silk mills were located within the complex itself; then, in 1805, the Filanda dei Cipressi (Cypress Mill) was built, later expanded in 1823 with the creation of an overlying “coccolliera” intended for storing silkworm cocoons.
Inside the building were the residences of the company administrator and the parish priest, the school, workshops for spinning and twisting silk, dyeing rooms, and the residence of the teacher and the machinery director. On the upper floor was the royal residence, directly connected via a corridor to the loom room.
There were also rooms used as a ballroom and dining room; particularly noteworthy was the Queen’s bath, designed with the characteristics of an ancient thermal environment featuring a large oval “calidarium” tub in Mondragone stone, recessed into the floor and supplied with hot water by a stove located in the compartment below, with walls frescoed by Philip Hackert [Information taken from “Il Real Sito di San Leucio”, edited by R.M. SELVAGGI, in “Album di famiglia. L’iconografia borbonica”, Associazione Culturale Campania 2000, Arti Grafiche Sud, Naples, pp. 9-15].
As mentioned, the King wanted to populate the site with workers for the silk mills, to the point of establishing a true “city-state” with its own precise rules and customs.
In his book, Ferdinand IV expresses concern for the education of the workers’ children, for the maintenance of families, and for the tranquility of everyone’s work, so that every man and woman could live off their own labor with dignity, without falling into idleness, the father of all vice.
In this sense, he dictated the rules of community life and work that made the San Leucio site famous worldwide as one of the first attempts at Enlightenment-style, and even somewhat utopian, agrarian socialism, even if the spirit that moved Ferdinand was a healthy royal paternalism. The King wrote: «(…) This norm and these laws to be observed by the inhabitants of San Leucio, who from now on must consider themselves as one single family, are those that I here propose and set forth, more in the form of a Father’s instruction to his children than as a legislator’s commands to his subjects» [In: ibid, p. 14].
The provisions were many and also concerned aspects of private life:
- equality: «no one must distinguish themselves from others except through exemplary conduct and excellence in their craft»;
- marriages: age not less than 20 for men and 16 for women, and, above all, «parents shall not interfere in the choice, but it shall be the free choice of the young people»; the dowry was abolished, as the sovereign himself provided for it;
- «The purpose of this society is that everyone remains in the place»: laws were strict for those who wanted to marry outside, who in any case had to leave the colony forever; for men who married external women intending to come and live in San Leucio, the rule was that they first had to learn the trade;
- education: compulsory for all, «to become a respectable man and an excellent citizen»;
- remuneration: it was given based on the skill of the individual up to the maximum «enjoyed by the best national and foreign artists»;
- inheritance: wills were abolished, and the only succession was between father and children with equal parts among them, and usufruct to the widow; in the absence of heirs, the deceased’s assets went to the Monte degli Orfani (Orphans’ Fund);
- government: democratic election by the heads of families of 5 individuals chosen from among the wisest, most just, and most prudent;
- social measures: a house for the sick; a charity fund subsidized by an income tax on everyone and by free offerings, which provided for the needs of the unfortunate up to funeral rites and religious suffrages; a fight against tax evaders, who were first pointed out for public contempt and, if they repeated the offense, deprived of all forms of assistance;
- justice: there was an internal exercise of justice, which went as far as expulsion in serious cases, and handover to state justice in cases of common criminal offenses;
- work: the working day was 11 hours; let us remember that in those same years in England, workers (who certainly did not live in the natural beauty of San Leucio!) had no guarantees of any kind, and working days reached up to 16 hours, even for children; furthermore, there was absolute wage parity between men and women.
Naturally, after 1860, the site was abandoned to its fate, and then, as always, its memory was erased: «The 780 gilded silver lilies that were part of the lavish decoration of the Throne Room of the Royal Palace in Naples, produced by that silk mill, were removed by officials of the House of Savoy and burned on September 14, 1861. The 20 pounds of silver obtained would later be sold for a handful of ducats» [Ibid, p. 15].
