Description
The Church of Santa Maria Donnaregina Nuova is the Baroque church that the Poor Clare nuns built in the seventeenth century in front of the Gothic Donnaregina Vecchia, in Largo Donnaregina, in the historic center of Naples. Since 2007 it has housed the Diocesan Museum: inside, a nave of gilded stuccoes and two enormous canvases by Luca Giordano.
The interior has a single nave, with no transept, and six deep chapels adorned with Baroque marbles, three on each side. The vault is decorated with gilded stuccoes typical of Neapolitan Baroque and was frescoed in 1654 by Francesco Maria De Benedictis, with the Coronation of the Virgin, the Assumption and Saint Francis in Glory. The Apostles look at the Madonna's empty tomb.
The high altar, in Sicilian breccia and verde antico, dates from 1701-1702 to a design by Francesco Solimena. On either side are the two large canvases by Luca Giordano, the Wedding at Cana and the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, four meters by eight, signed and dated 1705 and considered the last works of the Neapolitan painter.
Behind the altar is a large marble frame of 1636 with a fourteenth-century polyptych that came from the Old church: the Death, the Assumption and the Coronation of the Virgin, with saints at the sides. In the chapels are canvases of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Charles Mellin, Fasano and Solimena himself.
On the upper floor, once reserved for the nuns, is the nuns' choir. The vault, with the Life of Saint Francis, and the great scene over the door, the Miracle of the Roses (eight meters by almost ten), were painted in 1684 by a young Solimena and are his first great fresco.
The choir of the lay sisters, above the inner façade, preserves fragments of frescoes by Luca Giordano from around 1687, with Jael Killing Sisera, Saint Margaret and the Dragon, King David. It has been reorganized as a gallery for the concerts held in the church.
The Diocesan Museum continues in the sacristy and in the room of the communion, behind the apse, where paintings of the Neapolitan school from closed or suppressed churches are displayed. From here you can also reach Donnaregina Vecchia.
The story begins with a queen: the Old church was born in the fourteenth century thanks to the donations of Mary of Hungary, queen of Naples. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Poor Clares wanted another, new one, right in front, begun in 1617 by Giovan Giacomo di Conforto and consecrated in 1669. The two churches were connected by their respective apses.
Between 1928 and 1934, to rebuild the Gothic apse of the Old church, the restorer Gino Chierici shortened the choir of the New one by six meters, and the two churches were left separate. The monastery had been suppressed in 1861, when the widening of Via Duomo, in the Risanamento of Naples, required the demolition of part of the complex.
Don't miss
• The canvases by Luca Giordano.
• The vault of gilded stuccoes.
• The nuns' choir with Solimena's frescoes.
• The sacristy and the room of the communion.
Did you know?
• In 1681 a bell tower was planned, but the Augustinian nuns of nearby San Giuseppe dei Ruffi objected and the project was abandoned.
• The fourteenth-century tomb of Queen Mary of Hungary was moved several times between the two churches, before returning to the Old one.
The interior has a single nave, with no transept, and six deep chapels adorned with Baroque marbles, three on each side. The vault is decorated with gilded stuccoes typical of Neapolitan Baroque and was frescoed in 1654 by Francesco Maria De Benedictis, with the Coronation of the Virgin, the Assumption and Saint Francis in Glory. The Apostles look at the Madonna's empty tomb.
The high altar, in Sicilian breccia and verde antico, dates from 1701-1702 to a design by Francesco Solimena. On either side are the two large canvases by Luca Giordano, the Wedding at Cana and the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, four meters by eight, signed and dated 1705 and considered the last works of the Neapolitan painter.
Behind the altar is a large marble frame of 1636 with a fourteenth-century polyptych that came from the Old church: the Death, the Assumption and the Coronation of the Virgin, with saints at the sides. In the chapels are canvases of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Charles Mellin, Fasano and Solimena himself.
On the upper floor, once reserved for the nuns, is the nuns' choir. The vault, with the Life of Saint Francis, and the great scene over the door, the Miracle of the Roses (eight meters by almost ten), were painted in 1684 by a young Solimena and are his first great fresco.
The choir of the lay sisters, above the inner façade, preserves fragments of frescoes by Luca Giordano from around 1687, with Jael Killing Sisera, Saint Margaret and the Dragon, King David. It has been reorganized as a gallery for the concerts held in the church.
The Diocesan Museum continues in the sacristy and in the room of the communion, behind the apse, where paintings of the Neapolitan school from closed or suppressed churches are displayed. From here you can also reach Donnaregina Vecchia.
The story begins with a queen: the Old church was born in the fourteenth century thanks to the donations of Mary of Hungary, queen of Naples. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Poor Clares wanted another, new one, right in front, begun in 1617 by Giovan Giacomo di Conforto and consecrated in 1669. The two churches were connected by their respective apses.
Between 1928 and 1934, to rebuild the Gothic apse of the Old church, the restorer Gino Chierici shortened the choir of the New one by six meters, and the two churches were left separate. The monastery had been suppressed in 1861, when the widening of Via Duomo, in the Risanamento of Naples, required the demolition of part of the complex.
Don't miss
• The canvases by Luca Giordano.
• The vault of gilded stuccoes.
• The nuns' choir with Solimena's frescoes.
• The sacristy and the room of the communion.
Did you know?
• In 1681 a bell tower was planned, but the Augustinian nuns of nearby San Giuseppe dei Ruffi objected and the project was abandoned.
• The fourteenth-century tomb of Queen Mary of Hungary was moved several times between the two churches, before returning to the Old one.