Description
The Archaeological Area of San Lorenzo Maggiore is a piece of ancient Naples hidden beneath the basilica and the convent, in Piazza San Gaetano. It shows a Roman street with the shops still in their places.
About ten meters below street level runs a paved road some 60 meters long, with nine two-room shops on either side. Here people did their shopping, baked bread, dyed fabrics.
Beneath the cloister remain the ruins of the macellum, the Roman market of the 1st century AD, with a portico of shops and a small round building in the middle. Also not to be missed are the cryptoporticus and the covered market with its masonry counters.
We are in the heart of the ancient city. Piazza San Gaetano, just above, was the agora of the Greeks and then the forum of the Romans: a square on two levels, the lower one for trade and the upper one for politics.
At the end of the 5th century floods buried everything, and in the 13th century the church and convent were built on top. In the lowest levels you can also make out Greek, medieval, Norman-Swabian, Angevin and Aragonese traces.
The Museo dell'Opera occupies the convent: the Chapter Hall, the Sixtus V Hall and the monumental cloister. It tells the story of the city from the Greeks to the 19th century, with clothing, sacred vestments, paintings, furnishings and even nativity-scene figures.
Here, perhaps, the city's treasure was also kept: a building in the area is probably the aerarium, the public treasury.
The archaeological area is among the most important sites of the historic center, both for the value of its remains and for lying inside the Angevin complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore. Investigations have shown that the Roman layout of the 1st century AD followed an older organization.
The visit thus crosses several eras, from the Greek level to the Angevin one, and shows how much the city has layered itself over itself across the centuries.
The area is connected to the Napoli Sotterranea route, which starts from the same square.
About ten meters below street level runs a paved road some 60 meters long, with nine two-room shops on either side. Here people did their shopping, baked bread, dyed fabrics.
Beneath the cloister remain the ruins of the macellum, the Roman market of the 1st century AD, with a portico of shops and a small round building in the middle. Also not to be missed are the cryptoporticus and the covered market with its masonry counters.
We are in the heart of the ancient city. Piazza San Gaetano, just above, was the agora of the Greeks and then the forum of the Romans: a square on two levels, the lower one for trade and the upper one for politics.
At the end of the 5th century floods buried everything, and in the 13th century the church and convent were built on top. In the lowest levels you can also make out Greek, medieval, Norman-Swabian, Angevin and Aragonese traces.
The Museo dell'Opera occupies the convent: the Chapter Hall, the Sixtus V Hall and the monumental cloister. It tells the story of the city from the Greeks to the 19th century, with clothing, sacred vestments, paintings, furnishings and even nativity-scene figures.
Here, perhaps, the city's treasure was also kept: a building in the area is probably the aerarium, the public treasury.
The archaeological area is among the most important sites of the historic center, both for the value of its remains and for lying inside the Angevin complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore. Investigations have shown that the Roman layout of the 1st century AD followed an older organization.
The visit thus crosses several eras, from the Greek level to the Angevin one, and shows how much the city has layered itself over itself across the centuries.
The area is connected to the Napoli Sotterranea route, which starts from the same square.