Description
The Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità, simply “San Vincenzo” to the neighborhood, is the large seventeenth-century church of the Sanità district in Naples, with a dome covered in yellow and green majolica. Under the presbytery opens the entrance to the Catacombs of San Gaudioso, and inside are five canvases by Luca Giordano.
The dome is covered on the outside with eighteenth-century yellow and green majolica from the workshop of Gaetano Massa, and is one of the largest in Naples. The bell tower beside it, built between 1612 and 1614, has a majolica clock and an octagonal spire.
The interior surprises with how bare it is. The plan is circular, inscribed in a Greek cross and in a square with five naves, with 24 columns, twelve small domes and a large dome lit by eight big windows. There is no decoration on the walls, because the treasures are in the chapels, and the church is one of the first monumental statements of Counter-Reformation architecture.
The presbytery is raised and is reached by a spectacular marble pincer staircase. The architect, the friar Giuseppe Nuvolo, devised it to include the pre-existing early Christian basilica, the crypt, and to allow direct entry to the catacombs.
On the altar is a ciborium of 1628; behind it, a wooden choir of 1618-19 and the Madonna and Child by Michelangelo Naccherino.
There are eight chapels on each side, with altars that hold canvases of the Neapolitan seventeenth century. Five are by Luca Giordano, including Saint Vincent Ferrer Preaching to the Crowd and the Ecstasy of Mary Magdalene. Not to be forgotten is the Circumcision, in the left transept: it was painted around 1610 by Giovan Vincenzo da Forlì, probably completing a work begun by Caravaggio.
In the third chapel on the right, on a column, is the fresco of the Madonna della Sanità, from the fifth or sixth century, the oldest Marian image known in Naples. It was its discovery in the area of the catacombs that prompted the faithful to ask for a church for her.
The church and monastery were entrusted to the Dominicans. With the arrival of Napoleon the order was driven out and the church passed to the Franciscans, who filled it with their devotions, such as the canvas of the Franciscan Martyrs of Nagasaki. In 1809 most of the monastery was demolished to make room for the road that Joseph Bonaparte wanted to reach the Reggia di Capodimonte.
The elliptical cloister, from the late sixteenth century, by Nuvolo, is among the most unusual in Naples. In the nineteenth century a pier of the Sanità bridge fell in the middle of the cloister, interrupting the arcades.
In a display case is the nineteenth-century statuette of Saint Vincent Ferrer, which, according to tradition, the faithful raised in 1836 to defeat cholera. That is why the district celebrates him.
Don't miss
• The majolica dome.
• The canvases by Luca Giordano.
• The Madonna della Sanità.
• The elliptical cloister.
• The entrance to the Catacombs of San Gaudioso.
Did you know?
• Under the church, in the crypt, the ten altars were frescoed with stories of martyrs to close off the passages to the cemetery.
• The spire of the bell tower served Nuvolo as a model for the bell tower of the Carmine Maggiore.
The dome is covered on the outside with eighteenth-century yellow and green majolica from the workshop of Gaetano Massa, and is one of the largest in Naples. The bell tower beside it, built between 1612 and 1614, has a majolica clock and an octagonal spire.
The interior surprises with how bare it is. The plan is circular, inscribed in a Greek cross and in a square with five naves, with 24 columns, twelve small domes and a large dome lit by eight big windows. There is no decoration on the walls, because the treasures are in the chapels, and the church is one of the first monumental statements of Counter-Reformation architecture.
The presbytery is raised and is reached by a spectacular marble pincer staircase. The architect, the friar Giuseppe Nuvolo, devised it to include the pre-existing early Christian basilica, the crypt, and to allow direct entry to the catacombs.
On the altar is a ciborium of 1628; behind it, a wooden choir of 1618-19 and the Madonna and Child by Michelangelo Naccherino.
There are eight chapels on each side, with altars that hold canvases of the Neapolitan seventeenth century. Five are by Luca Giordano, including Saint Vincent Ferrer Preaching to the Crowd and the Ecstasy of Mary Magdalene. Not to be forgotten is the Circumcision, in the left transept: it was painted around 1610 by Giovan Vincenzo da Forlì, probably completing a work begun by Caravaggio.
In the third chapel on the right, on a column, is the fresco of the Madonna della Sanità, from the fifth or sixth century, the oldest Marian image known in Naples. It was its discovery in the area of the catacombs that prompted the faithful to ask for a church for her.
The church and monastery were entrusted to the Dominicans. With the arrival of Napoleon the order was driven out and the church passed to the Franciscans, who filled it with their devotions, such as the canvas of the Franciscan Martyrs of Nagasaki. In 1809 most of the monastery was demolished to make room for the road that Joseph Bonaparte wanted to reach the Reggia di Capodimonte.
The elliptical cloister, from the late sixteenth century, by Nuvolo, is among the most unusual in Naples. In the nineteenth century a pier of the Sanità bridge fell in the middle of the cloister, interrupting the arcades.
In a display case is the nineteenth-century statuette of Saint Vincent Ferrer, which, according to tradition, the faithful raised in 1836 to defeat cholera. That is why the district celebrates him.
Don't miss
• The majolica dome.
• The canvases by Luca Giordano.
• The Madonna della Sanità.
• The elliptical cloister.
• The entrance to the Catacombs of San Gaudioso.
Did you know?
• Under the church, in the crypt, the ten altars were frescoed with stories of martyrs to close off the passages to the cemetery.
• The spire of the bell tower served Nuvolo as a model for the bell tower of the Carmine Maggiore.