Description
The church of Sant'Angelo a Nilo, also known as the Brancaccio Chapel, is a small church in Naples' historic center, on Piazzetta Nilo, a stone's throw from Spaccanapoli and Piazza San Domenico Maggiore. From the outside it looks like very little: inside is a masterpiece by Donatello.
The reason to step in is the tomb of Cardinal Rainaldo Brancaccio, one of the most important sculptural works in the city. It still has the canopy structure of the Gothic, but its figures and reliefs already speak the new language of the Renaissance.
It was carved in Pisa, between 1426 and 1428, by Donatello, Michelozzo and other Tuscan masters. Then the tomb was loaded onto a ship and sent to Naples by sea, bound for the cardinal's family chapel.
On the high altar is the Saint Michael the Archangel painted in 1573 by Marco Pino of Siena. On the left, the Baroque tomb of Cardinals Francesco and Stefano Brancaccio, uncle and nephew: a pyramid held up by lions, with Death and Fame at its sides.
The portal on Via Mezzocannone is worth a look too, the only piece left of the Gothic church: angels and saints on the architrave, the Virgin with the cardinal in the lunette and a fifteenth-century wooden door with six carved saints.
The name comes from the little square, dedicated to the god Nile, whom the Egyptian merchants of Greco-Roman Naples worshipped here. His ancient statue still stands there, in the piazzetta.
The church was born in 1385, when Cardinal Rainaldo Brancaccio had a chapel built next to his family's palace. In 1709 Arcangelo Guglielmelli rebuilt it from scratch, with marbles, stuccoes and canvases by Giovan Battista Lama.
In the first chapel on the right, behind a brass and wrought-iron gate, lie the relics of Candida "the Younger," a matron of the sixth century. She was venerated as a saint until the last decades of the twentieth century: by mistake.
The reason to step in is the tomb of Cardinal Rainaldo Brancaccio, one of the most important sculptural works in the city. It still has the canopy structure of the Gothic, but its figures and reliefs already speak the new language of the Renaissance.
It was carved in Pisa, between 1426 and 1428, by Donatello, Michelozzo and other Tuscan masters. Then the tomb was loaded onto a ship and sent to Naples by sea, bound for the cardinal's family chapel.
On the high altar is the Saint Michael the Archangel painted in 1573 by Marco Pino of Siena. On the left, the Baroque tomb of Cardinals Francesco and Stefano Brancaccio, uncle and nephew: a pyramid held up by lions, with Death and Fame at its sides.
The portal on Via Mezzocannone is worth a look too, the only piece left of the Gothic church: angels and saints on the architrave, the Virgin with the cardinal in the lunette and a fifteenth-century wooden door with six carved saints.
The name comes from the little square, dedicated to the god Nile, whom the Egyptian merchants of Greco-Roman Naples worshipped here. His ancient statue still stands there, in the piazzetta.
The church was born in 1385, when Cardinal Rainaldo Brancaccio had a chapel built next to his family's palace. In 1709 Arcangelo Guglielmelli rebuilt it from scratch, with marbles, stuccoes and canvases by Giovan Battista Lama.
In the first chapel on the right, behind a brass and wrought-iron gate, lie the relics of Candida "the Younger," a matron of the sixth century. She was venerated as a saint until the last decades of the twentieth century: by mistake.