Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
( 848 80 02 88;
http://museosanmartino.campaniabeniculturali.it
;
Largo San Martino
5; adult/reduced €6/3; 8.30am-7.30pm Thu-Tue, last entry 6pm; Montesanto to
Morghen, Vanvitelli)
Originally built by Charles of Anjou in 1325, this former
Carthisian monastery hilltop has been decorated, adorned and altered over the centuries by
some of the greats of Italian art and architecture, most importantly Giovanni Antonio
Dosio in the 16th century and baroque master Cosimo Fanzago a century later. Today, it's
a superb repository of Neapolitan artistry, all of it wisely collected by its resident monks.
The monastery's
church
and the rooms that flank it contain a feast of frescoes and
paintings by some of Naples' greatest 17th-century artists. In the
pronaos
(a small room
flanked by three walls and a row of columns), Micco Spadaro's frescoes of Carthusian
persecution seem to defy perspective as figures sit with their legs hanging over nonexist-
ent edges. Elsewhere throughout the church you'll discover works by Francesco
Solimena, Massimo Stanzione, Giuseppe de Ribera, Luca Giordano and Battista Caracci-
olo. Especially noteworthy is the sascristy, adorned with extraordinarily detailed 16th-cen-
tury marquetry (inlaid wood) and carvings.
Adjacent to the church, the
Chiostro dei Procuratori
is the smaller of the monastery's
two cloisters. A grand corridor on the left leads to the larger
Chiostro Grande
(Great
Cloister), considered one of Italy's finest. Originally designed by Giovanni Antonio Dosio
in the late 16th century and added to by Fanzago, it's a sublime composition of Tuscan-
Doric porticoes, garden and marble statues. The sinister skulls mounted on the balustrade
were a light-hearted reminder to the monks of their own mortality.
Just off the Chiostro dei Procuratori is the
Sezione Navale
, whose two exhibition halls
focus on the history of the Bourbon navy from 1734 to 1860. The collection features a
series of detailed scale models of late-18th- and 19th-century warships used by the former
royals, as well as original navy weaponry. The true highlight, however, is the small collec-
tion of original royal barges, among them a gilded, canopied number used by Charles VII
and a beautifully carved 18th-century gift to Ferdinand IV from Turkish sultan Selim III.
One of the many museum highlights is the
Sezione Presepiale
, which houses a whim-
sical collection of rare Neapolitan
presepi
carved in the 18th and 19th centuries. These
range from the minuscule - a nativity scene in an ornately decorated eggshell - to the co-
lossal Cuciniello creation, which covers one wall of what used to be the monastery's kit-
chen. Angels fly down to a richly detailed landscape of rocky houses, shepherds and local
merrymakers, all made out of wood, cork, papier-mâché and terracotta.
The
Quarto del Priore
in the southern wing houses the bulk of the picture collection,
as well as one of the museum's most famous pieces, Pietro Bernini's tender
La vergine col
bambino e San Giovannino
(Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist).
