Description
The Basilica of Santa Chiara is the great Gothic church of the Angevins, in the heart of Naples, on Via Benedetto Croce, opposite Piazza del Gesù Nuovo. The complex includes the monastery with its majolica cloister, the Roman excavations and a small museum. It is where the Angevin kings rest.
The church is bare and austere: a single nave about 130 meters long with ten chapels on each side, full of tombs of nobles. Among the royal tombs stands out the tomb of Robert of Anjou, behind the altar, the work of the Florentines Giovanni and Pacio Bertini. In the presbytery there is also the monument to Mary of Valois, by Tino di Camaino.
The true jewel is the Poor Clares' majolica cloister, designed by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro and clad in eighteenth-century majolica tiles by the Massa family, with seventeenth-century frescoes of saints and scenes from the Old Testament. It escaped the bombings and is one of the few Baroque traces in the complex.
Under the monastery the excavations reveal the Roman baths of the late 1st century, the most complete bathing complex in Naples. In the nuns' choir a few fragments of Giotto's frescoes remain, while the museum tells the story of the complex.
The church was commissioned by Robert of Anjou and his wife Sancia of Majorca, who dreamed of the cloistered life without being able to take it up. The works lasted from 1310 to 1328, in a Gothic of Provençal origin. Tino di Camaino and Giotto worked on it.
The fourteenth-century bell tower, to the left of the church, remained at a third of its height for centuries: work began in 1338, but after the death of Robert of Anjou, in 1343, the funding stopped. After the earthquake of 1456 it almost entirely collapsed and was raised again in Baroque style, finished in 1604.
On August 14, 1571, Don John of Austria received the pope's banner here before leaving for Lepanto. In the eighteenth century the church was covered with Baroque stucco, frescoes and marble, and the marble floor is by Ferdinando Fuga.
On August 4, 1943, an Allied bomb started a fire that lasted almost two days and carried off the stuccoes, the eighteenth-century frescoes and most of the Giottesque ones. The restorations, much debated, returned the basilica to its fourteenth-century look: it reopened in 1953.
Don't miss
• The majolica cloister.
• The tomb of Robert of Anjou.
• The excavations of the Roman baths.
• The nuns' choir.
Did you know?
• The excavations of the baths came to light precisely during the bombings of the Second World War.
• In 1973 the great Gothic portal was moved five meters back from the street.
The church is bare and austere: a single nave about 130 meters long with ten chapels on each side, full of tombs of nobles. Among the royal tombs stands out the tomb of Robert of Anjou, behind the altar, the work of the Florentines Giovanni and Pacio Bertini. In the presbytery there is also the monument to Mary of Valois, by Tino di Camaino.
The true jewel is the Poor Clares' majolica cloister, designed by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro and clad in eighteenth-century majolica tiles by the Massa family, with seventeenth-century frescoes of saints and scenes from the Old Testament. It escaped the bombings and is one of the few Baroque traces in the complex.
Under the monastery the excavations reveal the Roman baths of the late 1st century, the most complete bathing complex in Naples. In the nuns' choir a few fragments of Giotto's frescoes remain, while the museum tells the story of the complex.
The church was commissioned by Robert of Anjou and his wife Sancia of Majorca, who dreamed of the cloistered life without being able to take it up. The works lasted from 1310 to 1328, in a Gothic of Provençal origin. Tino di Camaino and Giotto worked on it.
The fourteenth-century bell tower, to the left of the church, remained at a third of its height for centuries: work began in 1338, but after the death of Robert of Anjou, in 1343, the funding stopped. After the earthquake of 1456 it almost entirely collapsed and was raised again in Baroque style, finished in 1604.
On August 14, 1571, Don John of Austria received the pope's banner here before leaving for Lepanto. In the eighteenth century the church was covered with Baroque stucco, frescoes and marble, and the marble floor is by Ferdinando Fuga.
On August 4, 1943, an Allied bomb started a fire that lasted almost two days and carried off the stuccoes, the eighteenth-century frescoes and most of the Giottesque ones. The restorations, much debated, returned the basilica to its fourteenth-century look: it reopened in 1953.
Don't miss
• The majolica cloister.
• The tomb of Robert of Anjou.
• The excavations of the Roman baths.
• The nuns' choir.
Did you know?
• The excavations of the baths came to light precisely during the bombings of the Second World War.
• In 1973 the great Gothic portal was moved five meters back from the street.