Description
The Cloisters of Santa Chiara are four monumental cloisters in the monastery of the basilica of Santa Chiara, in the historic center of Naples. The most famous is the majolica cloister, a garden of colored tiles.
The majolica cloister, or Poor Clares' cloister, dates from 1739 and is the work of Domenico Antonio Vaccaro. Two crossing paths run through it between octagonal pillars covered in riggiole tiles with flowers and fruit, and benches covered in scenes of Neapolitan life.
On the majolica appear carriages, fishermen, festivals, country scenes and masquerades. The Poor Clares lived in enclosure, but they still saw the city: painted in the garden, it was the outside world brought inside.
Then there are the other cloisters. The cloister of the Friars Minor has remained as it was: the friars, few and poor, spent nothing to remake it. The Service cloister, from the 14th century, is the oldest of the four.
The small cloister of San Francesco is behind the refectory and the nuns' choir. It has undergone many alterations: of the original composition only the columns of the arches remain.
Abbess Ippolita di Carmignano wanted to break the austerity of the neighboring Gothic church and blend architecture and nature. Vaccaro kept the Gothic structure and redesigned the garden. The money was not enough: the sisters asked for help even from Queen Maria Amalia.
In 1943 bombs devastated the basilica, but the majolica cloister remained almost intact.
The Museo dell'Opera route also passes through the marble room and the history room, where there is the 19th-century plaster cast of one of the two Swabian-era twisted columns destroyed in 1943. The archaeology room shows part of the 1st-century Roman excavations.
The four cloisters are of different periods: two belong to the Santa Chiara complex and two to the Poor Clares' church. The refectory of the Friars Minor was turned into the Poor Clares' church, and for this reason two of the four cloisters came to lie within the latter's space.
The marble statues and fragments in the museum, such as the reliefs with the Stories of Saint Catherine of Alexandria by the Bertini brothers, from 1345, once on the inner facade of the church, tell what the war left behind.
The cloisters are visited through the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Chiara.
The majolica cloister, or Poor Clares' cloister, dates from 1739 and is the work of Domenico Antonio Vaccaro. Two crossing paths run through it between octagonal pillars covered in riggiole tiles with flowers and fruit, and benches covered in scenes of Neapolitan life.
On the majolica appear carriages, fishermen, festivals, country scenes and masquerades. The Poor Clares lived in enclosure, but they still saw the city: painted in the garden, it was the outside world brought inside.
Then there are the other cloisters. The cloister of the Friars Minor has remained as it was: the friars, few and poor, spent nothing to remake it. The Service cloister, from the 14th century, is the oldest of the four.
The small cloister of San Francesco is behind the refectory and the nuns' choir. It has undergone many alterations: of the original composition only the columns of the arches remain.
Abbess Ippolita di Carmignano wanted to break the austerity of the neighboring Gothic church and blend architecture and nature. Vaccaro kept the Gothic structure and redesigned the garden. The money was not enough: the sisters asked for help even from Queen Maria Amalia.
In 1943 bombs devastated the basilica, but the majolica cloister remained almost intact.
The Museo dell'Opera route also passes through the marble room and the history room, where there is the 19th-century plaster cast of one of the two Swabian-era twisted columns destroyed in 1943. The archaeology room shows part of the 1st-century Roman excavations.
The four cloisters are of different periods: two belong to the Santa Chiara complex and two to the Poor Clares' church. The refectory of the Friars Minor was turned into the Poor Clares' church, and for this reason two of the four cloisters came to lie within the latter's space.
The marble statues and fragments in the museum, such as the reliefs with the Stories of Saint Catherine of Alexandria by the Bertini brothers, from 1345, once on the inner facade of the church, tell what the war left behind.
The cloisters are visited through the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Chiara.