Europe of the XVIII century is permeated by common and dominant elements: it is the century of luxury and Enlightenment. The geographical discoveries, the new immense wealth including knowledge influence style (for instance the diffusion of chinoiseries) and the perception of reality. A common aspect of European courts - naturally including the Bourbon court - is the development of arts, philosophy and social sciences.
A campaign of scientific knowledge of the territory, with mapping operations never seen before, starts with a purely Enlightenment spirit. At the same time King Ferdinand IV also commissions a different type of aesthetic mapping calling as court painter the Prussian landscapist Jacob Philipp Hackert, asking him to realize a precise pictorial representation of the harbors of the Kingdom. His extraordinary paintings embellished Palaces and Royal Shooting Lodges;

they also had a political and propagandistic function during the visits of ambassadors and foreign travelers.
The first discoveries and the first archeological excavations, strongly wanted by Queen Maria Amalia, have equal function of propaganda and esthetical satisfaction. The archeological finds and the news regarding these discoveries have such a weight that the European cultural panorama is totally influenced by them and the neoclassic style explodes starting from the second half of the century. This custom doesn't always follow official channels: despite Ferdinand's law prohibiting the export of ancient material, it seems that Lord Hamilton, the English ambassador and great friend of the King, during Royal Hunting at the Fagianeria in Calvi or in Capua, used to take not only game but also archeological finds. These findings could surely form the first nucleus of classic art of the British Museum in London. Excavations and researches are also effected in Terra di Lavoro, for instance in the ancient Capua, called by Romans the Altera Roma because second only to the Urbe for number of inhabitants. Nowadays its name is S. Maria Capua Vetere; here you can admire the magnificent Amphitheatre, the Adrian's Arch and the Mitreo (one of the best preserved temples destined to the cult of the Mitra divinity), as well as the precious finds kept in the Archeological Museum which stands where during the Bourbon period there was a Military District of Cavalry, besides the finds kept in the new Museum of the Gladiators.
These discoveries also influence arts and architecture which abandons the baroque schemes, to assume forms borrowed by the classical rigor. The Royal Palace in Caserta is one of the first buildings representing these changes.
Of course there is also a scientific interest: in order to realize the aqueduct serving the Park and the Palace, architect Luigi Vanvitelli builds the bridges in the Valle di Maddaloni, one of the most imposing in Europe realized on arches, with a technique used in modern age but inspired by the ancient Roman aqueducts. The work, now patrimony of UNESCO, is part of a conduit forty kilometers long , with its source in Frizzo - Airola- near Benevento, where you can see the marvelous Church of the Annunziata with its Vanvitelli façade.
The Bourbons were aware of the serious economic degradation of the Kingdom and its population. For this reason they promote a series of enlightened measures to reinforce the economy, professional and entrepreneurial spirit as well as occupation.
First of all Charles did his best to realize representative Palaces, to promote improvement in infrastructural and urbanistic fields in order to utilize a large non specialized workforce.
Aware of the necessity to train the workers - but also to create a class of artisans able to satisfy the King's request of luxury articles - the Bourbons established avant-guard schools and factories such as tapestry weaving, cabinet-maker's shops, ceramic and hard stones laboratories. San Leucio is a typical Enlightenment experiment of establishing a fair and self-sufficient society. Beginning from the 1776 Ferdinand IV realizes in the immediate vicinity of the Caserta Palace, in the so-called Belvedere, a silk factory to satisfy the demand of precious textiles by the entire court. In 1789 the King "donates" to the workers of this community an advanced set of laws which was the fruit of the Enlightenment theories while in the same year the Revolution tries to free France from the privileges of the nobility. The Code introduced by Ferdinand assured the population of San Leucio equal rights, among which the right to an equitable salary, the recognition of illness, the right to a pension, to the dowry for the daughters and the right to a house. In San Leucio in 1786 an ideal Ferdinandopoli is founded. Here the first workers houses of Italy were built but only two districts were completed: San Carlo and San Ferdinando formed by serial house units. San Leucio also has a further record in the Church of S.Maria delle Grazie which is the first neo-Gothic construction of Italy; this Church is located at the so-colled Vaccheria and it was realised by F. Collecini and finished by G. Patturelli between 1801 and 1805.
If San Leucio had to constitute a new model of industrial development, Ferdinand also realised a model farm in Carditello(today part of San Tammaro) to testify his adhesion to the old agricultural politics. The whole complex was born from a careful analysis of the practical demands of an agricultural farm and besides the production units a Royal Residence was also built to function as a Shooting Lodge just as in San Leucio.
To improve the life and agricultural conditions in Terra di Lavoro, the Bourbons also realised in the unhealthy and marshy lands between Castel Volturno and Marcianise the reclamation of the Clanio river by establishing a series of canals still known today as Regi Lagni. The important work of reclamation effected by the Bourbons in the territory of Castel Volturno and the following interventions had preserved the splendid shore-line and allowed the creation of the Varriconi oasis, which in a Mediterranean landscape hosts more than one hundred bird species.
Thanks to the great innovations introduced by the industrial revolution the Bourbons realised important useful works to modernise the Kingdom. They commissioned the first Italian railway lines and the first iron bridges of Italy: the first being the Ferdinand Bridge in the 1832 on the Garigliano river in Sessa Aurunca, and the Maria Cristina Bridge in the 1835 on the Calore river in Solopaca. These constructions have been projected by Luigi Giura just a few years prior to the first English and French iron bridges.
The numerous civilisations and dynasties that alternated in the history of Sessa Aurunca have left precious testimony: the ruins of a Roman Theatre, the remains of the enormous complex of the Criptoportico and the Bridge of the Aurunci (all these of the Roman epoch); dating back to the medieval period we also find the Cappuccini Gate and the boundary wall which surrounds the superior part of the suburb.
Sessa Aurunca also has several and interesting religious edifices: the Cathedral of S. Pietro (an excellent expression of the Romanesque architecture in Southern Italy, consecrated in 1113), the Churches of S. Stefano, of S. Germano, of the Annunziata, of S. Anna, the Convent and the Church of the Minorities and the Convent of S. Agostino (restored during the Bourbon period by Luigi Vanvitelli).