Pio Monte della Misericordia: Church and Art Gallery
In 1601, driven by the charitable
aspirations of
the Counter Reformation, seven Neapolitan
gentlemen founded a
quasi-secular organization dedicated to taking care of the needy in
Naples. Their original idea was to raise enough money to support a
number of beds (places) in the Hospice for the Incurable. An early site
for the organization was built almost immediately, but by mid-century
the organization expanded into the premises that one sees today
(photo), on via Tribunale, one block from a side entrance of the Naples
Cathedral.
The building is the work of architect Francesco
Antonio
Picchiatti and was completed in 1670. It is directly across the
street
from the small square, Piazza Sisto Riario Sforza, in the center of
which stands the oldest of the three well-known "spires of Naples", the
24-meter high Spire of San Gennaro, erected in 1636 and the work Cosimo
Fanzago. (The other two spires are at Piazza San Domico Maggiore and
Piazza del Gesù Nuovo.)
The two-story building rests
on a portico of five arches and contains an art gallery on the first
floor.
The building was purposely designed not to look like a church, though
it does contain one on the premises. That interior church, too, is the
work of Picchiatti and is built to an octogonal plan with seven altars.
It is best known today, perhaps, for the presence of Caravaggio's
spectacular and complicated painting, The
Seven Acts of Mercy, one of the most influential works of art in
the 17th century in Naples.