Palazzo Dentice d’Accadia, now home to Accadia Relais, was built in the first half of the 15th century, during the height of the Aragonese court’s splendor in Naples. It was then that Angelo Como,a powerful merchant with close ties to the Aragonese kings, chose this site for his family’s first Neapolitan residence. He designed it as a casa-fondaco (merchant’s house), featuring the noble residence on the upper floor and a courtyard below dedicated to commercial trade. Documents from 1464 mention the large entrance arch made of piperno stone, while five years later, pietra serena arrived by sea from Tuscany for the arched portico that is still visible in the courtyard today. A balcony was later added to the façade—a rarity for that era—adorned with the family coat of arms (a crescent moon with three stars) and Florentine lilies, a tribute to the family’s close ties with the Medici of Florence.
In the second half of the century, on the other side of the street, the family began a second construction project, which would become the monumental Palazzo Como, now home to the Filangieri Museum. Originally, the two palaces were very close, and possibly connected by an overpass. At the end of the 19th century, with the Risanamento and the opening of the current Via Duomo, Palazzo Como would be dismantled and rebuilt about twenty meters back, in its current position.

Over time, the merchants’ house becomes a true noble residence. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, it is inhabited by the jurist Tommaso Grammatico, a man of vast culture, capable of navigating unscathed through the political seasons of the Kingdom, from the Aragonese to the Spanish viceroyalty. In 1535, Viceroy Pedro de Toledo appointed him magistrate of the Sacred Royal Council, the highest court in the Kingdom of Naples. Tommaso lived on the piano nobile, where the discreet splendor of his era has left indelible traces. During recent restorations, in those very rooms, coffered ceilings from the Renaissance, painted wooden decorations, and seventeenth-century wall paintings re-emerged: fragments of beauty that time had only hidden. Outside, the ancient piperno stone portals have been revealed once again, reminding us that each era leaves its own voice.

In the eighteenth century, the house finds new light: it now belongs to the Dentice family, Dukes of Accadia, and its piano nobile comes alive with conversations, sword duels, and evenings dedicated to the Enlightenment. Dominating this era is Fabrizio Venato Dentice, 3rd Duke of Accadia, a fascinating and contradictory figure. At the end of the century, he is involved in Jacobin conspiracies, and in 1794 is relegated to Lipari, then pardoned and reinstated by Joachim Murat, becoming his advisor. Meanwhile, the palace changes its appearance: the supportico becomes an entrance hall, the arch is widened for carriages, the facade is renewed, and floors are added. The merchants’ house is now a noble salon, a symbol of an elegant and restless Naples. Today, those who enter the Accadia Relais traverse the same space that has witnessed six hundred years of history: from Tuscan pietra serena to Neapolitan piperno, from the rooms of the Como and Grammatico families to the salons of the Dentice d’Accadia, up to the contemporary style of the recent renovation, perfectly integrated into the history of the place. A place where time has not stood still, but invites those who enter to become part of it.