The mon­u­men­tal com­plex at Caser­ta, cre­at­ed by the Bour­bon king Charles III in the mid-18th cen­tu­ry to rival Ver­sailles and the Roy­al Palace in Madrid, is excep­tion­al for the way in which it brings togeth­er a mag­nif­i­cent palace with its park and gar­dens, as well as nat­ur­al wood­land, hunt­ing lodges and a silk fac­to­ry. It is an elo­quent expres­sion of the Enlight­en­ment in mate­r­i­al form, inte­grat­ed into, rather than imposed on, its nat­ur­al set­ting.