SanPietro Martire. The main
body of this ex-monastery now houses departments
of the Federico II University
of Naples. The origins of San Pietro
Martire go back to the Angevin
dynasty in Naples when Charles II of Anjou
authorized the construction of a new Dominican
basilica. Construction was begun in 1294.
(At the time, the area was already a maze of tight
alleyways close to the port; the layout of the
area that one sees today was greatly changed by
the urban rebuilding, the Risanamento,
of the late 1800s.)
Our Lady of Mercy. (A.k.a.
the Church of Sant'Orsola.) The presence of the
Spanish Mercedarian order is part of the
consolidation of the Spanish monarchy in the vice-realm of Naples in
the 1500s. This church/monastery is at the western
end of via Chiaia (now a pedestrian thoroughfare),
a road that, indeed, was once the main way to get
from the area around the Royal palace to the newer
Spanish expansions to the west along the sea
front. (Actually, it still is the easiest way if
you don't mind a short walk.) The church is on the
site of an earlier Chapel of St. Orsola from the
1400s; construction to incorporate that chapel
into the newer church started in the late 1500s.
The church is not particularly conspicuous from
the front as it is abutted on both sides by other
buildings. Like many church/monasteries in Naples,
it was closed under the French in the early 1800s,
but later reopened. It underwent extensive
restoration in the 1850s. Ten years later, the
unification of Italy forced the closure of
virtually all monasteries in Italy. In 1874, the
former monastic premises were sold and eventually
converted into the Sannazzaro Theater, still
operating. The adjacent church stayed a church and
remains essentially what one sees today.
Santa Maria delle Grazie is
below the Corso Vittorio Emanuele at a small
square called Piazza Mondragone, a name
historically applied to the entire premises that
contain the small church: il Retiro di Mondragone,
the Mondragone Retreat. The entire complex was
originally a "conservatory", in the early
non-musical use of the word to mean a shelter, a
place where widows and destitute women might be
cared for. The complex was founded in 1653 by
Elena Aldobrandini, countess of Mondragone.
Construction of the church, itself, was somewhat
later than the shelter; the church is from 1715.
Urbanization and subdivision of the area has
reduced Santa Maria della Grazie to a rather sorry
state. For a long time, it was simply closed but
has recently been at least partially restored. It
is considered an outstanding example of late
Baroque art and architecture in Naples.
Santa Maria Assunta di
Bellavista. It is difficult to say which church in
Naples has the best view of the bay. This one has
to be high on anyone's list. It is way out of town
at Piazza San
Luigi, on the long main road, via
Posillipo, that winds west away from Mergellina and up the
hill towards Cape Posillipo. (The photo, right,
was taken from the road that runs down to the sea,
the cape and villa
Volpicelli.) From the long monastery-like
facade, one is tempted to compare this church to
the old Spanish buildings in downtown Naples-maybe
spectacularly restored. Not so; in fact, from the
side or above, you see that the building is not a
gigantic monastic block, but simply a very long
facade fronting a relatively shallow building. It
was built in only 4 years, beginning in 1860 on
land granted by Francis
II (the last king of Naples) to two sisters
of the Capece Minutolo family. The church, itself,
is only the central portion of the building. The
two wings were meant to house, respectively, a
school and shelter for the poor on one side and
dwellings on the other. The clean neo-Gothic
facade, thus, is not a restoration, but the
original design.
Santa Maria della Pazienza
is commonly called the "Cesarea", after Annibale
Cesareo, the royal secretary responsible in 1602
for the construction of what was then a church
plus major hospital. It is located about halfway
up the Vomero hill above the archaeological museum
and accessible from below by the main road up, via
Salvator Rosa. It is today just above the
intersection of that street and Corso Vittorio
Emanuele (a major east-west road which did not
exist until the mid-1800s). The "Cesarea" was, at
the time it was built, well outside of town.
Originally, the church and hospital were under the
direct administration of the Holy See. The
hospital was closed in the late 1800s under a
general move towards secularization of health-care
facilities in Naples, and the administration of
the church was transferred to the archbishopric of
Naples.
Santa Maria del
Parto (Birth) overlooks the small port
of Mergellina and
is quite easy to "underlook" if you are busy
with the daily portside routine. Yet, the church
is very old and very historic. It was founded by
the great Neapolitan poet Iaccopo Sannazzaro
on land he obtained in 1497 from Frederick II of
Aragon. The king also gave Sannazzaro a stipend;
thus, the poet spent the last years of his life
working on his church and his poem, De partu
Virginis, at the same time.
Although the entire complex has been divided and
subdivided over the years, it is evident that
the whole affair was once a single unit and was
much bigger than the quaint church on top
(photo). The original plans called for a
two-level complex-the church that you see today
on top and another church dug in the tufaceous
cliff face below at a point where there was a
cave that contained a well-known wooden presepe (manger
scene) by Giovanni da Nola. The premises also
included a monastery, using part of an earlier
structure that had been on the site from the
time of the Angevin dynasty. The first church
was finished in good order, but the second part
had some problems in the early 1500s due to a
plague epidemic that forced Sannazzaro to leave
Naples. Also, the French and Spanish were still
fighting for control of the area; thus, at one
point in the 1520s, the new church was converted
into a military fortification. Before his death,
Sannazzaro managed to get the property back, and
heirs finished the project. Later, the monastery
part was closed by the French in the early 1800s
and, for a while, those premises became the
private property of the Neapolitan opera
impresario, Domenico
Barbaia.
The
church of Santa Teresa degli Scalzi (aka
Santa Teresa al Museo or Madre di Dio)
is the eponym for the street on which it is
located, just around the corner to the north of
the National
Archaeological Museum. The broad street
was the new thoroughfare built by the French
under Murat in the
early 1800s to connect the historic center of
the city with the royal palace of Capodimonte. In
spite of the historical importance of the church
and the great number of art works contained on
the premises, it is almost never open to be
visited. The interior of the church is a
treasure trove, with works by painters Paolo de Matteis and
Battistello
Caracciolo and the sculptor Domenico Antonio Vaccaro,
among many others. Also, the church holds a
painting of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII. It
is by Giacomo
Colombo and is from 1715, the era of
the brief Austrian Hapsburg
vice-realm in Naples. The chapel of St.
Teresa within the church was designed by Cosimo Fanzago and is
considered relevant in the history of Neapolitan
Baroque art
S.M. degli Scalzi was built
between 1604 and 1612 and was the first church
and monastery of the Discalced ("barefoot") Carmelite Order
in Naples. The founders were Carmelite monks
from Spain, followers of St. Teresa of cvila.
The facade of S.M.
degli Scalzi contains a stucco statue
of St. Teresa and one of St. John of the Cross;
the facade is from 1652 and is the work of
Fanzago. [There is a seperate entry on the Ancient (Calced)
Carmelite Order.]
When religious orders were
closed in 1808, some of the furnishings within
the church were moved elsewhere to conserve them
as cultural artifacts. In this case, the
original altar, built by the Neapolitan
sculptor, Dionisio
Lazzari (1617-89), was moved to the
royal palace, where it resides today. The double
stairway is the result of later construction in
the 1830s after the church was reopened. The
ex-monastic premises today house an Industry and
Crafts Institute for the Blind.
San Carlo all'
Arena. This church with the strange name is
located on the north side of via Foria, just
east of Piazza Cavour, and is relatively late
in the history of Neapolitan church building.
The general layout of the building is
attributed to the Dominican priest/architect Fra Nuvolo
(Vincenzo de
Nuvola, 1570-1643), but the church
was not inaugurated until 1700 with work on
the facade continuing as late as 1756. This is
actually a rebuilt version of another church
of the same name somewhat to the west of the
present site; that church was opened in 1602
and is no longer standing. The name, itself,
"Arena" means "sand" and refers to the former
presence of a rain-fed river that ran along
what is now via Foria, all presence of which
has now vanished; the last witness to that
presence, the nearby bridge of Sant'Antonio
abate, was demolished in
1868. The church was home to the Cistercian
order, which, however, had to abandon the
premises in 1792 to make room for a shelter ("conservatorio"),
a plan that never came to fruition. With the
coming of the anti-clericalism of the
short-lived Neapolitan
Republic of 1799 and then of the
longer-lived French rule under Murat at the beginning
of the 1800s, the premises were used as a
store-house; many of the art works contained
in the church and monastery were lost. Thanks
to the work of the Cistercian order during the
cholera outbreak of 1836, they were again
given the property. After the unification of
Italy, the order was suppressed. The
ex-monastic premises are today occupied by
public buildings. The church today still
contains significant art work and sculpture.

From its location, size and appearance, the
church of Saints
John and Theresa might seem much
older than it is-perhaps a sister to
one of those many 16th -and-17th-century Spanish
churches just below it in the Chiaia section of
town, just above the western end of the Villa Comunale.
Actually, it is more recent and consequently
enjoyed a much shorter life as the
church/convent it was intended to be. There had
been an earlier royal villa of sorts on the
property when it was acquired by members of the
Discalced Carmelite order in 1747. Ten years
later, a central church was added (photo) at the
behest of the monarch, Charles
III. Tradition likes to attribute the
conversion and subsequent building on the
premises to architect Angelo
Carasale, who had just completed the San Carlo Theater;
however, most sources now claim that the
architect is unknown but, whoever he was, he
owed a lot to Antonio
Domenico Vaccaro.
The church is on the steep street, Arco Mirelli,
about halfway up between piazza della
Repubblica at sea-level and the long
east-west road, Corso Vittorio Emanuele. If
you step back from the front of the building and
can keep from rolling down the hill, you will
see just how large it is. In that respect, it
has something in common with the earlier Spanish
monasteries and convents. All convents and
monasteries were closed by the French in the early 1800s
and again after the unification of Italy in
1861; more recently, the former convent of
Saints Giovanni e Teresa was converted to
secular use as part of the Loreto Crispi
hospital. The interior of the church contains
works by sculptor Manuel Pacecho and paintings
by Giuseppe Bonito (1707-89) and Francesco de
Mura (1696-1782). Bonito and de Mura were both
students of Solimena,
and, interestingly, Bonito is better known for
his popular renditions of Neapolitan life than
for religious works.
The
church of Santa
Maria dell'Aiuto [Saint Mary of
Eternal Help, or of Succour]
is on the small east-west street of that name
about 150 yards into the old city across the
street (via Monteoliveto) from the east side of
the main post office. It is just past the
better-known church of Santa Maria la Nova.
The
architect was Dionisio
Lazzari [--> index
'L'] and, in its newly restored condition
(after years of being closed), the church may be
appreciated for the absolute gem of the
Neapolitan Baroque that it was. The historian Celano (writing when the
church was new) recounts what has become
folklore surrounding the origins of the
church-that two children in 1635 posted their
own crude drawing of the Blessed Virgin in a
window of a lower floor of what was then the
Palazzo Pappacoda (not to be confused with a
church of the same name) and collected
donations. When they had collected enough, they
hired a real artist to do his own rendition on
canvas-again to solicit donations. The process
gained speed and by the time of the great plague
of 1656, a small chapel had been founded and
then a church-on the site of the original
Pappacoda building-dedicated to Our Lady of
Succour. (In an age in which such concrete
manifestations of faith were held to be
protection from earthquakes, eruptions of
Vesuvius and pestilence, not only churches
arose, but also the three so-called "plague columns" of
Naples).
The
church is in the design of a Greek cross-that
is, a central nave with a transept of equal
length as the nave; it has a central dome. A
partial inventory of the art works contained in
the church includes:
-three paintings by Gaspare
Traversi dated 1749: The Nativity,
The Annunciation, and the
Ascension of the Virgin;
-the monument tomb of Gennaro Acamparo by
Francesco Pagano from 1738;
-also by Pagano, the angels that support the
candelabra of the main altar;
-the painting of The Virgin of
Succour by Giuseppe Farina;
-The Flight of Joseph by Nicola Malincolico;
-the side ovals of The Archangel
Michael by Giacinto Diano.
The restoration of Santa
Maria dell'Aiuto has been spectacularly
successful.
. I harbor
no illusion that I will ever discover- much
less write about-all of the little churches in
Naples that are abandoned and falling apart.
But sometimes I see one set incongruously in
the middle of the modern city, and it stirs my
urge to know more. Via Depretis is the avenue
between Piazza
Municipio (the site of the city hall)
and Piazza della Borsa (the stock exchange).
Like all such straight, broad thoroughfares in
that section of Naples, it is the product of
the massive reconstruction called the risanamento, a
30-year project of the late 19th and early 20th
century. A smaller, yet important, wave of
construction took place in Naples during the
1920s and 30s and produced those mastodons of
Fascist Art Deco such as the main post office,
the passenger terminal at the port of Naples,
and all of the municipal and provincial
government buildings on or near Piazza
Matteotti.
Another
such monolith is the telephone exchange
about halfway along via Depretis. It gleams
and towers over the rest of the
neighborhood; indeed, it and the large risanamento
building a few yards away could do an
excellent car-crusher number on the
tiny edifice caught in the middle, the
church of San Giacomo degli Italiani.
The small church is closed, dilapidated and
non-descript'yet, for what it's worth-it
managed to survive two great waves of
purposeful demolition and construction in
the last century and even various random
waves of destruction in the form of the aerial
bombardments of WW II.
The church was a remake in the 1570s of a
nearby church of the same name that
disappeared as part of Spanish construction
in the 16th century. The original church was
from 1328 and was the seat of the Order of
the Knights of St. James. The appellation "degli
Italiani" (of the Italians) may have
been to distinguish it from another
church-more familiar to Neapolitans and,
indeed, still a functioning church-San Giacomo
degli Spagnoli. Or, says another
theory, it was to honor sailors from Pisa
("Italians" as opposed to "Neapolitans")
whose fleet rested in the port of Naples for
a while on the way home from a victory over
the Saracens further south in 1327. The
facade of the present church incorporates
the portal from the 1500s as well as a crest
comprised of a shell, sword, and cross, the
symbol of the Order of St. James. The church
was left standing intentionally during the risanamento
and was reconsecrated in 1901. I have been
unable to find out if it served as a church
after the giant building was put up next
door. I suspect that it was closed during
that period and simply never reopened.
If the
church of Santa
Maria in Cosmedin is as old as legend
says it is, no wonder UNESCO is willing to chip in
�,000 to restore it as a museum. That is, if it
was really founded by Constantin the Great-around
the year 300-that would put the church in the
first ranks of paleo-Christian
houses of worship in Naples. At the very least,
the church is at least as old as one of the same
name in Rome from the 500s, and, in any event, has
been documented to be one of the first four
parishes in Naples. The unusual name comes from
the Greek adjective cosmedin (from meaning ornate. The
church in Naples held both Greek and Latin rites
until around the year 1200.
S.M.
Cosemedin is also called S.M. di Portanova
(New Gate) from its location near a medieval
city gate of that name. The small square in
front of the church is still called Portanova
and is about one block in (i.e., to the north)
from the modern straight boulevard named Corso
Umberto, not far from the main building of the Federico II University.
The
structure has been closed since the 1980
earthquake and is in impossibly bad and unsafe
condition. Virtually nothing of the artistic
interior remains, all having been either
stolen/vandalized or removed for safekeeping.
The configuration that one sees today is from
the late 1600s and early 1700s, concealing the
grounds beneath the main body of the church,
site of a burial ground and presumably whatever
remains of the original paleo-Christian
premises. There are upper stories, as well.
Through the centuries, various monastic orders
found a home in an adjacent monastery, removed
during the Risanamento,
the urban renewal of the late 1800s. That
construction/demolition also removed an ornate
Baroque double stair-case at the entrance. I
have heard nothing of current plans to start
restoration or of the disposition of the monies
supposedly allocated by UNESCO.
The Church of S.
Maria della Concordia was built in 1556
to a design by Father Giuseppe Romano,
provincial vicar of the Carmelite order. The
church was built about a third of the way up the
steep slope leading to the San
Martino monastery and the Sant' Elmo fortress.
The church was, thus, well above the new main
street, via Toledo, and was at the high
southwest section of the area still called the "Spanish quarters",
built in the mid-1500s to garrison Spanish
vice-royal troops. In those days, the slopes
were still bucolic and sprinkled with churches
and monasteries at about the level of today's
road, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which winds along
east to west just above the Concordia and other
religious institutions from around the same
period. These include the nearby church of Santa Caterina da Siena
and the Convent of
the Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity (now
known as the ex-Military Hospital).
The Concordia was restored in 1718 by Giovan
Battista Nauclerio, best known in Naples for his
work on the church and monastery of San Domenico Maggiore;
the church was then completely restored in 1858.
During the various closures of religious orders
in Naples since Murat,
the premises have also served as a boarding
school, a music school, and even an infamous
Debtors' Prison. The most significant painting
on the premises is The Blessed Virgin with St. Michael;
it is either by Giuseppe
de Ribera or the Sicilian painter,
Bernardo Azzolino (1572 - 1645).
Confusing
historical note! The church
contains the tomb of one Gaspare Benemerino.
According to one source (de Lellis, below),
Gaspare was due to become the "22nd King of Fez"
when he converted to Christianity, [thus]
"...renouncing his powerful kingdom...in order
to gain the eternal kingdom of Heaven." Since
that note appeared in 1654, some sources have
simply referred to Gaspare as the son of the
"King of Fez," and as one who served Phillip III
of Spain. This has led other sources to call
Gaspare a son of the ruler of "The Kingdom of
Fez," but Fez and the Kingdom of Fez are not
necessarily the same and, in this case, are
probably not.
First, the epitaph near Gaspar's
tomb in the church simply says that he was an
African king. Assuming the date on the epitaph
(1641) to be the year of his death and the
reference to "Pope Urban VIII" (papal
reign 1623-44) to be accurate, there is some
confusion. Although De Lellis transcribed
the Latin epitaph to read that Gaspare
served "Phillip III of Spain,"
the stone (photo, right) says "Phillip II" and
even that is not clear. It might even be a
"Phillip I" that someone has altered to "Phillip
II" by adding a numeral. (Of course, that
wouldn't fix the chronology, either, but it's as
close to 'III' as they could squeeze in. "C'mon, who's
going to notice. Let's go to lunch."
This is likely to have been Guido & Vinnie's
Epitaph and Pizza Delivery Service. They still
exist!)
Second,
there was, indeed, an historical state called
the Kingdom of Fez with a limited existence,
from 1472 to 1554, but that may be irrelevant.
What De Lellis meant by "the 22nd king of Fez"
was probably that Gaspare was from the city of
Fez, a major religious center of Islam since the
founding of the city in 789 by the Idrisid
dynasty. The city has been called the "Mecca of
the West." Rulers of Fez (as well as other parts
of Morocco) have been various dynasties called
by tribal names such as Idrisid, Almoravid,
Marinid, Wattasid, and Saadi. (The Kingdom of
Fez is also termed the Wattasid Sultanate.)
Thus, de Lellis may have meant that Gaspare was
the son of a king in a long, long chain of
rulers stretching back to the founding of Fez.
In any event, Phillip I (or even Phillip II) on
the epitaph stone has to be a mistake, which De
Lellis corrected to Phillip III (reigned from
1598 to 1621) in his transcription in order to
set the chronology straight. So, Gaspare
Benemerino died in 1641 in Naples. He was
descended from Moroccan royalty, converted to
Christianity and served Phillip III of Spain. I
think.
source:
de Lellis,
Carlo. Supplement
to "Napoli Sacra" by Cesare d'Engenio
Caracciolo. Naples, 1654.