Description
The Church of the Nunziatella, actually the church of the Santissima Annunziata, is a Baroque church in Naples' San Ferdinando district, on the Pizzofalcone hill, next to the Nunziatella Military School, whose chapel it is. Outside it has an almost bare façade; inside is an explosion of Neapolitan Baroque.
The façade has none of the usual statues or ornaments: the central body projects from the sides and the play of light and shadow is left to the moldings of the architectural orders. Then you step inside, and the contrast is striking.
The interior has a single nave with a barrel vault and four side chapels. The whole vault is covered by the Assumption of the Virgin by Francesco De Mura, from 1751, who also painted, on the inner façade, the Carpenter's Shop of Saint Joseph and the Flight into Egypt.
The high altar is a riot of polychrome marble, made in 1732. At its sides are two pairs of torch-bearing angels by Giuseppe Sanmartino, from 1756, very like those the same sculptor made for the Girolamini: he is the sculptor of the Veiled Christ.
Among the chapels, the first on the right, In passione Domini, has a Deposition from 1646 and a funerary monument where a weeping cherub puts out his torch. In the apse are the funerary monuments of the Giovene brothers and canvases on the life of Mary, with the Annunciation at the center: this is the church's dedication.
Among the furnishings is also a wax Madonna, made between 1733 and 1740 and attributed to Giovanni Francesco Pieri.
The name is a diminutive. The church was dedicated to the Annunciation, but the people soon called it "Nunziatella", so as not to confuse it with the great basilica of the Annunziata Maggiore. It was built in 1588 by Anna Mendoza, Marchioness of Valle Siciliana, who then gave it to the Jesuits.
In 1736 Ferdinando Sanfelice rebuilt it from scratch, erasing every trace of the sixteenth century. After the Jesuits were expelled in 1773, the complex passed to the Somaschi fathers and then to the military college founded by Ferdinand I of Bourbon, and the church became its chapel.
The façade has none of the usual statues or ornaments: the central body projects from the sides and the play of light and shadow is left to the moldings of the architectural orders. Then you step inside, and the contrast is striking.
The interior has a single nave with a barrel vault and four side chapels. The whole vault is covered by the Assumption of the Virgin by Francesco De Mura, from 1751, who also painted, on the inner façade, the Carpenter's Shop of Saint Joseph and the Flight into Egypt.
The high altar is a riot of polychrome marble, made in 1732. At its sides are two pairs of torch-bearing angels by Giuseppe Sanmartino, from 1756, very like those the same sculptor made for the Girolamini: he is the sculptor of the Veiled Christ.
Among the chapels, the first on the right, In passione Domini, has a Deposition from 1646 and a funerary monument where a weeping cherub puts out his torch. In the apse are the funerary monuments of the Giovene brothers and canvases on the life of Mary, with the Annunciation at the center: this is the church's dedication.
Among the furnishings is also a wax Madonna, made between 1733 and 1740 and attributed to Giovanni Francesco Pieri.
The name is a diminutive. The church was dedicated to the Annunciation, but the people soon called it "Nunziatella", so as not to confuse it with the great basilica of the Annunziata Maggiore. It was built in 1588 by Anna Mendoza, Marchioness of Valle Siciliana, who then gave it to the Jesuits.
In 1736 Ferdinando Sanfelice rebuilt it from scratch, erasing every trace of the sixteenth century. After the Jesuits were expelled in 1773, the complex passed to the Somaschi fathers and then to the military college founded by Ferdinand I of Bourbon, and the church became its chapel.