Miscellaneous churches in Naples 5

Miscellaneous Churches 5

The church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini is in the Vomero section of Naples, near the square, Piazza degli Artisti. It is new (from the 1960s) and was a replacement for the church of the same name that existed until the 1950s in the center of town. That church was near the port and went back to the 1200s. The interesting name “dei Fiorentini” meant that the church existed through the centuries as a house of worship for the community of Florentine citizens—mostly merchants—who lived in the capital of the Kingdom of Naples during those years.

From the clean, white, unadorned exterior of the church, it is not at all evident that the premises are a repository of medieval and Baroque art, but it is so; most of the art from the original church was moved to the new one. This include works by Marco Pino, Giovanni Balducci, and Paolo de Matteis. (The large canvasses are arrayed along both sides of the church; otherwise the walls would be totally bare, which means that the original plans for the new church foresaw the placing of such art work in the interior.)

The parrish priest, Don Raffaele Sogno, may be the only one in Naples who uses modern audio-visual methods during church services. He employs slides, recorded music, and poetry readings related to the particular point in the Gospel he is trying to make.

The dome and belfry of the baslica of Santa Maria della Sanità rise conspicuously above the modern road level. "Modern," in this case refers to the early 1800s, when the French rulers of Naples decided to extend the main road, via Toledo, north out of the city and up to the Capodimonete Palace. The new road essentially passed above the section of Naples called "Sanità," still today one of the most crowded sections of the city, the tight and twisting alleys of which were largely untouced by modern renovations of the city in the 20th century. The road was called "Corso Napoleone" for a short time after it was built but is now via Santa Teresa degi Scalzi (named for the nearby church of Santa Teresa degli Scalzi, the first church and monastery [1612] of the Discalced Carmelite Order in Naples. "Discalced" means "barefoot"). At the point where the street passes over the Sanità, the street name changes to Corso Amedeo di Savoia Duca d'Aosta.

S. Maria della Sanità (interior)

The church is popularly referred to as "San Vincenzo della Sanità," after the Domenican saint, Vincenzo Ferreri, particularly revered in the Sanità quarter of Naples. The basilica was built between 1602 and 1613 and was actually built atop an original house of worship buried by mudslides centuries earlier and rediscovered in 1569. The original church was connected to the veneration of San Gaudioso, bishop of Abitina in the Roman province of Africa (approximately, parts of modern Tunesia, Algeria and

Libya

). Tradition says that Gaudioso died in Naples in c.451 after being set adrift from the north African coast by the Vandal King Geiseric. At Gaudioso’s death in Naples, his remains were interred in the catacombs that bear his name today. His followers then founded a monastery at Caponapoli, a short distance away but within the ancient city walls (approximately, the height looking north over the National Museum) and moved his remains there. That led to the abandoning of the active religious community that had grown up in the original area and to a long period of neglect not rectified until the 1500s when a 6th-century image of the Madonna and Child was uncovered in the area. (That painting is now in the basilica.) This started a wave of pilgrimages that turned into true urban expansion as the Neapolitan populace started to move outside the historic city walls for the first time. That, in turn, led to the construction of the Basilica beginning, as noted, in 1602. The main altar (photo, above) was purposely set atop and joined internally to the paleo-Christian catacombs of San Gaudioso; access is from the space beneath the altar.

The Basilica is considered one of the most important monuments to the Counter-Reformation in Naples and the interior is a palimpsest, from preexisting burial grounds to architecture of the Counter-Reformation and then to more modern works including 19th-century handicraft and recently acquired works of modern art. Art work on the premises includes a number of paintings by Luca Giordano. The spectacular marble pulpit and double strairway combine to form one of the most theatrical affairs of its kind in any church in the city and, perhaps, in all of Italy. That contruction is from the years 1677-1705. Towering above the scene is a magnificent organ from the early 1700s, last restored in 1940. According to information from Gian Marco Vitagliano, a Neapolitan restorer of such instruments, this one has two manuals (keyboards) and about 2,000 pipes. It is, alas, not currently in working order and plans for restoration are unclear.

The church of San Giorgio dei Genovesi is on via Medina between the City Hall and the main police station. There used to be a sign indicating that the premises were the site of something called the University Chapel. Now, however, the premises have recently been acquired as classroom space for the "Parthenope" University of Naples.The church was finished in 1620, which makes it old in some places in the world but not in Naples; indeed, it stands next to a church that was built 300 years earlier. The term Genovesi in the name—as with "Fiorentini" (above)—indicates that it originally served the needs of a foreign community, in this case Genova. San Giorgio dei Genovesi was built on the site of the first commercial theater in Naples. The church is the work of Bartolomeo Picchiatti (b. Ferrara, c. 1571; d Naples, 1643),who moved to Naples in the late 1590s at the invitation of prominent architect, Domenico Fontana. Picchiati is first noted as a supervisor of construction on Fontana's new Royal Palace. S. Giorgio dei Genovesi is one of the few surviving examples of Picchiati's work in Naples. He is the father of architect Francesco Antonio Picchiati.

Santa Lucia al Monte is in the middle of what was once a vast Franciscan monastic complex from the 1550s. The entire complex was set onto the site of a ready-made flat space in the hillside, an excavated Angevin quarry from the 1300s. It is directly below the San Martino hill on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele at a point where that east-west road makes a turn to the north. The area enjoys an unobstructed view to the east and south towards the sunrise, Mt. Vesuvius, and the Sorrentine peninsula. When the monastery was built, it was totally out of the city in a truly bucolic setting. It may no longer be bucolic, but it is still scenic; thus— with the fate of monasteries being what it was in the 1800s in Italy (they were all closed)—the monastery premises on the left (facing the church) now serve as a many-starred luxury hotel, San Francesco al Monte; the premises around the corner to the right are now used by the department of jurisprudence of the nearby Suor Orsola university. The church has recently been restored.

The church of San Giovanni Battista delle Monache is on via Costantinopoli just outside (west) of what used to be original Greek and Roman wall of the city. The nucleus of the church/convent was started in 1597 by a group of sisters ("monache" in the name of the church) from Capua. The construction proceeded sporadically as the order bought up pieces of property in the area, and it was not until 1673 that the whole site was given some coherent design under the eye of one of the great architects of the time, Antonio Francesco Picchiati. The finishing touches on the impressive facade and corridors of the convent were done by Giovan Battista Nauclerio in the early 1700s. The church is in the form of a Latin cross with lateral chapels; the main altar is adorned by Luca Giordano's John the Baptist Preaching.

The church is now across the street, laterally, from the Academy of Fine Arts. Actually, the Academy is the original convent. That situation arose as a result of the closure of the monastery in the early 1800s by the government of Murat and then, in the 1850s, a massive restructuring of this ancient area that saw the laying of the new street that divided the convent church from the convent itself. After the unification of Italy, the convent premises were converted to be the art academy.

Santa Maria a Cappella Nuova. This inconspicuous, though colorful, church is a tiny clerical remnant of what was once a gigantic monastic complex on the eastern side of Piazza dei Martire. The complex had paleo-Christian origins, being the site of a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary from the fifth century. According to tradition, that chapel, itself, was on the site of an earlier Roman temple of Serapis. Between the 12^th and 16^th centuries the premises were expanded and became the abbey of Santa Maria a Cappella Vecchia (“old chapel”). There was a Chiaia Gate on the site—an entrance to the western side of Naples and the then new road, Riviera di Chiaia, which ran along the water's edge. The date “1506” is still visible on the ruins of the gate. Later, a second chapel was added on the west side of the complex and named Santa Maria a Cappella Nuova ("new chapel"); the red church that one sees today (photo) on via Domenico Morelli is that second chapel.

Much of the ancient religious structure was bought by Giuseppe Sessa in the early 1700s and converted to a private dwelling, still called "Palazzo Sessa." It was the official residence of the English ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, William Hamilton, and Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson had apartments there; also, Goethe visted in 1787. What was once the courtyard of the entire complex is now a dead-end alley named via Santa Maria a Cappella Veccia that runs in from Piazza dei Mariti and is the site of a few antique shops, a gymnasium (the ex-old chapel!), and also provides passage to the Jewish synagogue of Naples.

The church of San Domenico Soriano is directly across the street from the large square, Piazza Dante. As with all the other large churches on that side of the street for many blocks on this main thoroughfare of downtown Naples, San Domenico Soriano was once part of a much larger monastic complex. All such monasteries were closed in the early 1800s under Murat. Some were reopened in 1816 but closed again in the 1860s after the unification of Italy. This monastery, however—the yellow adjacent building on the south aide of the church—was never reopened as such. It served as a military barracks between 1816 and 186; it now houses Naples municipal office space.

The church was started in 1619, with basic construction not complete until 1660. The monastic grounds were not finished until well into the 1700s. (The conspicuous belfy was not added until 1759.) Some of the greatest names in Neapolitan architecture and sculpture were involved with the design, construction, and ornamentation of the church over many decades. These include Francesco Picchiati (the royal architect and original designer of the great column at Piazza San Domenico Maggiore), Giuseppe Sanmartino (sculptor of the Veiled Christ), and Cosimo Fanzago (whose works in Naples are almost without number).

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