Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Commissioned by Robert of Anjou for his wife Sancia di Maiorca, the monastic com-
plex was built to house 200 monks and the tombs of the Angevin royal family. Dissed as a
'stable' by Robert's ungrateful son Charles of Anjou, the basilica itself received a luscious
baroque makeover by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, Gaetano Buonocore and Giovanni Del
Gaizo in the 18th century before taking a direct hit during an Allied air raid on 4 August
1943. Its reconstruction was completed in 1953. Features that did survive the fire include
part of a 14th-century fresco to the left of the main door and a chapel containing the tombs
of the Bourbon kings from Ferdinand I to Francesco II.
Complesso
Monumentale di San
Lorenzo Maggiore
Offline map
( 081 211 08 60;
www.sanlorenzomaggiorenapoli.it
; Via dei Tribunali 316; church
admission free, excavations & museum adult/reduced €9/6; 9.30am-5.30pm Mon-Sat,
9.30am-1pm Sun; C55 to Via Duomo)
Architecture and history buffs shouldn't miss
this richly layered religious complex, its breathtaking
basilica
deemed one of Naples'
finest medieval buildings. Aside from Ferdinando Sanfelice's petite facade, its baroque
makeover was stripped away last century revealing its original austere Gothic elegance.
Beneath it, a sprawl of extraordinary
ruins
will transport you back two millennia.
Down here you can conjure up the Graeco- Roman city as you walk past ancient baker-
ies, wineries and communal laundries. At the far end of the
cardo
(road) there's a
crypto-
porticus
(covered market) with seven barrel-vaulted rooms.
Back at current street level, the basilica itself was commenced in 1270 by French archi-
tects, who built the apse. Local architects took over the following century, recycling an-
cient columns in the nave. Catherine of Austria, who died in 1323, is buried here in a
beautiful mosaicked tomb. Legend has it that this was where Boccaccio first fell for Mary
of Anjou, the inspiration for his character Fiammetta, while the poet Petrarch called the
adjoining convent home in 1345.
The religious complex is also home to the
Museo dell'Opera di San Lorenzo Mag-
giore
and its intriguing booty of local archaeological finds, including Graeco-Roman sar-
cophagi, ceramics and crockery from the digs below. Other treasures include vivid 9th-
century ceramics, Angevin frescoes, paintings by Giuseppe Marullo and Luigi Velpi, and
camp ecclesiastical drag for 16th-century bishops.
CHURCH, HISTORIC SITE
Duomo
CHURCH, RUIN, MUSEUM
