Situated in Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, a few steps from the Church of Gesù Nuovo and the monumental complex of Santa Chiara, and therefore right in the heart of the city, Palazzo Pandola was purchased in 1823 by Gaetano Pandola. He was married to Amelie Higgins, an Irish woman who was a close friend of Baroness Poerio. A very particular anecdote is linked to the two: it is said that Higgins kept the Baroness’ son, Carlo, hidden before he could escape to Ireland. This is because the young man had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the trial he underwent for having participated in the riots of ’48 and was, therefore, wanted by the Bourbon police.
However, with the annexation to the Kingdom of Naples he returned and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He later died in Florence in 1867.
A no less important curiosity is that the palace was the protagonist of two of the city’s iconic films, one, Gold of Naples, starring Vittorio de Sica as a fallen nobleman, the other, Marriage Italian Style.
The style that originally represented the majestic palace was certainly late Baroque. Only later was the facade of the same modified, returning to a neoclassical style. Balconies, an important cornice and a portal were created.
Surely, however, the most enchanting thing when you enter it is the typical staircase of many Neapolitan palaces (similar, in fact, to the Spanish Palace): an open eighteenth-century staircase adorned and embellished with splendid pictorial decorations.
