Physical and human geography

Overlooked from the west by Palazzo Pignatelli (where the painter Edgar Degas resided while in Naples) and with the 18th-century ornate Neapolitan obelisk Guglia dell’Immacolata at its centre, this square is dominated by the church of Gesù Nuovo, its gem-cut facade masking a sumptuous Baroque interior. Opposite rises the medieval complex of Santa Chiara, erected for the Franciscan order in the 14th century. The vast church, transformed internally in the 18th century and now restored (following tragic bombardment in 1943) to its original Gothic form, houses a damaged splendour of royal tombs and early frescoes. At its rear the large cloister decorated in 18th-century majolica tiles is one of the loveliest in Naples.

From this square the line of Spaccanápoli runs due east. The profusion of important monuments there, the mingling of eras, and the exuberance of the human setting are of inexhaustible fascination. Near the Gesù Nuovo, Palazzo Filomarino houses the Italian Institute for Historical Studies, founded by the philosopher Benedetto Croce. (Another celebrated Neapolitan philosopher, Giambattista Vico, was born, two centuries before Croce, in a house also preserved in this street.) Flanked by great palazzi, the basilica of San Domenico Maggiore, its Gothic form merged into the structures of later centuries, is a treasury of painting and sculpture. In 1272–74, St. Thomas Aquinas taught in the adjoining monastery. Where the intersecting Via Mezzocannone turns south toward the University of Naples, the church of Sant’Angelo a Nilo contains a lofty tomb sculptured by Donatello and Michelozzo. The nearby Renaissance Palazzo Santangelo was a stronghold of the once-mighty Carafa family.

In the upward transverse of Via San Gregorio Armeno, the church of this name exemplifies the Neapolitan Rococo. In this street, in slotlike shops, figures are made for the innumerable Neapolitan family crèches—culminating each Christmas in a scene of indescribable liveliness and charm. Via San Gregorio Armeno terminates, at its junction with Via Tribunali, in the little Piazza San Gaetano, which overlies the site of the Greek agora and Roman forum. Bounded by the two great churches of San Lorenzo Maggiore and San Paolo Maggiore, and in close proximity to a third—the Gerolomini—this busy space remains a focus of Neapolitan continuity.

The splendid Gothic church of San Lorenzo Maggiore stands on layers of antiquities. Beneath its cloister, which contains exposed remains from Roman times, a large excavation from the Greek and Roman eras of Naples constitutes—with antiquities discovered below the nearby Duomo—a considerable segment of the ancient city centre. At San Lorenzo Maggiore, in 1334, Boccaccio claimed to have first seen Fiammetta; and there, in November 1345, Petrarch, then lodging in the adjacent monastery, prayed—as he recounts in a memorable letter—for the city’s deliverance from a catastrophic storm. San Paolo Maggiore, on the site of a Roman temple, features antiquities incorporated into its handsome exterior and into the adjacent cloister. The great complex of the Gerolomini embraces a magnificent library and a small gallery of Neapolitan pictures. Its entrance on Via del Duomo faces the cathedral (Duomo) of Naples.

The Duomo

The Duomo is dedicated to the city’s patron, St. Januarius (San Gennaro), the liquefaction of whose congealed blood is the stimulus for two popular festivals each year. The rich chapel (or treasury) of St. Januarius forms part of an interior whose abundance of antique columns, painting, sculpture, and fine objects constitutes, not least in its incongruity, a history of Naples. The present church gives access to the early basilica of Santa Restituta and the adjoining baptistery, with 5th-century mosaics, of San Giovanni in Fonte. Near the upper (southern) flank of the cathedral, the 14th-century church of Santa Maria Donnaregina is, in its interior decoration, among the most interesting and beautiful medieval monuments of Naples, while the nearby Santi Apostoli, on the site of a Roman temple, provides a prodigious display of 17th-century Neapolitan painting.

Britannica Quiz

Guess the City by Its River Quiz

To the east, the formidable Castel Capuano—site of law courts since the 16th century—rises near the round towers of the Capuana Gate, which in turn overshadow the Renaissance church of Santa Caterina a Formiello. Renaissance also is the decoration, by Giuliano da Maiano, of the exterior arch of this Aragonese city gate. Beyond the Capuana Gate, the northwest-southeast diagonal of Via Carbonara follows the line of demolished city walls. Marked, on its upper slope, by the monumental church of San Giovanni a Carbonara—containing the statuary tomb of King Ladislas and other capital late Gothic and early Renaissance works—Via Carbonara descends, with a change of name, to Piazza Garibaldi and the railway station.

Toward the end of the 19th century, precipitate change was wrought, from Piazza del Municipio to the railway station, by the slum clearance, or risanamento, that, following a calamitous epidemic of cholera in 1884, drove the straight, ugly Corso Umberto I (also called the Rettifilo) through that historic quarter. The stolid Rettifilo conceals, in small recesses, many historic buildings—beginning with the church of San Pietro Martire and concluding, at Piazza Garibaldi, with that of San Pietro ad Aram and its paleo-Christian crypt. Near Piazza Garibaldi, the Aragonese Nolana Gate is an enclave of busy markets.