Description
The Church of Santa Teresa degli Scalzi is a Baroque church in Naples, in the Stella district, along the broad street opened between 1806 and 1810 to link the historic center to Capodimonte. It is also called Santa Teresa al Museo.
It was wanted by the Discalced Carmelites. Work began in 1604 and the church was consecrated in 1612, thanks above all to the offerings collected by Pietro della Madre di Dio, a Spanish preacher and follower of Saint Teresa of Avila. The design was by Giovan Giacomo di Conforto.
The façade is by Cosimo Fanzago, from 1652, with two stucco statues: Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross. When the new street was opened, the ground level dropped and a staircase was needed to reach the entrance; today's double flight dates from 1835.
The interior is a Latin cross with a single nave and chapels, rich in Baroque works: canvases, statues and busts by Neapolitan artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Chapel of Saint Teresa of Avila, in the left transept, is one of the finest examples of the seventeenth century in Naples. Fanzago designed it in 1640: inlaid marbles on walls and floor, a little brass gate, stucco sculptures and two paintings by Ippolito Borghese.
In the second chapel on the left, Battistello Caracciolo painted the Stories of the Carmelite Order between 1616 and 1620. Here too is the sculpture of Emperor Charles VI, by Giacomo Colombo, from 1715: the only artistic testimony of a Habsburg in a Neapolitan church.
The most precious treasure is no longer here. In 1808, with the suppression of religious orders, the high altar by Dionisio Lazzari, all semiprecious stones and lapis lazuli, with surprising perspective effects, was taken to the Royal Chapel of the Royal Palace, where it still is. Today's is by Giuseppe Sanmartino and comes from the church of the Divino Amore.
The dome, designed by Di Conforto, collapsed in 1835, perhaps because it was too slender, and was replaced by a more cautious covering. Beside the church, the two monumental cloisters and the former convent, once the palace of the Duke of Nocera, now belong to the Istituto Paolo Colosimo for the blind.
It was wanted by the Discalced Carmelites. Work began in 1604 and the church was consecrated in 1612, thanks above all to the offerings collected by Pietro della Madre di Dio, a Spanish preacher and follower of Saint Teresa of Avila. The design was by Giovan Giacomo di Conforto.
The façade is by Cosimo Fanzago, from 1652, with two stucco statues: Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross. When the new street was opened, the ground level dropped and a staircase was needed to reach the entrance; today's double flight dates from 1835.
The interior is a Latin cross with a single nave and chapels, rich in Baroque works: canvases, statues and busts by Neapolitan artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Chapel of Saint Teresa of Avila, in the left transept, is one of the finest examples of the seventeenth century in Naples. Fanzago designed it in 1640: inlaid marbles on walls and floor, a little brass gate, stucco sculptures and two paintings by Ippolito Borghese.
In the second chapel on the left, Battistello Caracciolo painted the Stories of the Carmelite Order between 1616 and 1620. Here too is the sculpture of Emperor Charles VI, by Giacomo Colombo, from 1715: the only artistic testimony of a Habsburg in a Neapolitan church.
The most precious treasure is no longer here. In 1808, with the suppression of religious orders, the high altar by Dionisio Lazzari, all semiprecious stones and lapis lazuli, with surprising perspective effects, was taken to the Royal Chapel of the Royal Palace, where it still is. Today's is by Giuseppe Sanmartino and comes from the church of the Divino Amore.
The dome, designed by Di Conforto, collapsed in 1835, perhaps because it was too slender, and was replaced by a more cautious covering. Beside the church, the two monumental cloisters and the former convent, once the palace of the Duke of Nocera, now belong to the Istituto Paolo Colosimo for the blind.