Description
The Church of Santa Maria Donnaregina Vecchia is a fourteenth-century church in the historic center of Naples, built for the Poor Clare nuns. In the nuns' choir it keeps the largest cycle of fourteenth-century frescoes in the city, and the tomb of an Angevin queen.
The façade is simple and narrow, with two single-light windows and an oval under the coat of arms of Queen Mary of Hungary, who wanted the convent. In front opens a small eighteenth-century cloister, called "of the Marbles", with round arches and Ionic pilasters, perhaps to a design by Ferdinando Sanfelice.
Inside is a single nave, just over 38 meters long, ending in a polygonal apse. The original trussed ceiling, with fragments of fourteenth-century frescoes, is hidden by a sixteenth-century wooden ceiling, with a Coronation of the Virgin by Pietro Belverte at the center.
The nuns' choir sits above the nave, on six octagonal pillars with cross vaults. You reach it through a door on the right, just after the entrance: it holds the most important fourteenth-century fresco cycle in Naples, though its attribution is uncertain.
On the left wall of the nave is the tomb of Mary of Hungary, by Tino di Camaino, from 1326: this is not its original position. Opposite opens the Loffredo chapel, with fourteenth-century frescoes of the Annunciation, the stories of Saint John and Saint Francis preaching to the birds: a Giottesque taste with Byzantine echoes.
In the apse, parts of the glazed terracotta floor remain, an example of Neapolitan ceramics of the Angevin age, and the vaults are painted in the colors of the Anjou and of the house of Hungary. At the sides of the arch are two fourteenth-century Crucifixions; in the nave, a Martyrdom of Saint Ursula from 1520, perhaps by Francesco da Tolentino.
The monastery is very ancient: it is mentioned as early as 780. Under Charles I of Anjou it was a prison for noble enemies of the king. After the earthquake of 1293 Mary of Hungary had it rebuilt from the foundations; the church was opened for worship in 1316 and consecrated in 1320.
In the seventeenth century the nuns built themselves a new church next door, and the old one was left on the sidelines. After the suppression of 1861 it was divided into rooms and passed to the city, which put everything into it: municipal guards, a school, housing for the poor, a court, a museum.
Only the restorations by Gino Chierici, between 1928 and 1934, gave it back its Gothic forms.
Don't miss
• The frescoes of the nuns' choir.
• The tomb of Mary of Hungary.
• The Loffredo chapel.
• The glazed terracotta floor.
Did you know?
• The choir rests above the nave, on six pillars: a solution later found in some German churches.
• In 1390 a lightning bolt started a fire that damaged the church's roof.
The façade is simple and narrow, with two single-light windows and an oval under the coat of arms of Queen Mary of Hungary, who wanted the convent. In front opens a small eighteenth-century cloister, called "of the Marbles", with round arches and Ionic pilasters, perhaps to a design by Ferdinando Sanfelice.
Inside is a single nave, just over 38 meters long, ending in a polygonal apse. The original trussed ceiling, with fragments of fourteenth-century frescoes, is hidden by a sixteenth-century wooden ceiling, with a Coronation of the Virgin by Pietro Belverte at the center.
The nuns' choir sits above the nave, on six octagonal pillars with cross vaults. You reach it through a door on the right, just after the entrance: it holds the most important fourteenth-century fresco cycle in Naples, though its attribution is uncertain.
On the left wall of the nave is the tomb of Mary of Hungary, by Tino di Camaino, from 1326: this is not its original position. Opposite opens the Loffredo chapel, with fourteenth-century frescoes of the Annunciation, the stories of Saint John and Saint Francis preaching to the birds: a Giottesque taste with Byzantine echoes.
In the apse, parts of the glazed terracotta floor remain, an example of Neapolitan ceramics of the Angevin age, and the vaults are painted in the colors of the Anjou and of the house of Hungary. At the sides of the arch are two fourteenth-century Crucifixions; in the nave, a Martyrdom of Saint Ursula from 1520, perhaps by Francesco da Tolentino.
The monastery is very ancient: it is mentioned as early as 780. Under Charles I of Anjou it was a prison for noble enemies of the king. After the earthquake of 1293 Mary of Hungary had it rebuilt from the foundations; the church was opened for worship in 1316 and consecrated in 1320.
In the seventeenth century the nuns built themselves a new church next door, and the old one was left on the sidelines. After the suppression of 1861 it was divided into rooms and passed to the city, which put everything into it: municipal guards, a school, housing for the poor, a court, a museum.
Only the restorations by Gino Chierici, between 1928 and 1934, gave it back its Gothic forms.
Don't miss
• The frescoes of the nuns' choir.
• The tomb of Mary of Hungary.
• The Loffredo chapel.
• The glazed terracotta floor.
Did you know?
• The choir rests above the nave, on six pillars: a solution later found in some German churches.
• In 1390 a lightning bolt started a fire that damaged the church's roof.