San Domenico Maggiore

Gothic, Renaissance, and baroque art masterpieces in a Neapolitan church

This massive Gothic edifice was erected from 1289–1324, and rebuilt in the Renaissance and early baroque eras (when it received its prime attractions inside).

You enter the church from under the apse end, where you'll see the body of the church was overhauled in Neogothic style in the 1850s.

Walk down the left aisle (which is on your right, since you're coming in from the wrong end) to the end, where the last chapel houses a Crowning of St. Joseph by Luca Giordano. Now turn around to attack the church from the proper direction.

The first chapel on the right aisle is a Renaissance masterpiece of design and sculpture by Tuscans Antonio and Romolo da Settignano. The third chapel on the right contains 1309 frescoes by Roman master Pietro Cavallini (a contemporary of Giotto), brought to light during restoration work in the 1950s.

The seventh chapel on the right is the Cappellone del Crocifisso, with some Renaissance tombs and a copy of the 12th-century Crucifixion painting that spoke to St. Thomas Aquinas.

Next door, the theatrical Sacristy has a bright ceiling fresco by Francesco Solimena (1706) and small caskets containing the ashes of Aragonese rulers and important courtiers lining a high shelf.

What acts like a right transept was actually a preexisting church grafted onto this one, the Chiesa Antica di Sant'Angelo a Morfisa, today an oversize chapel containing lots of finely carved Renaissance tombs.

On Piazza San Domenico Maggiore is another of Naples' baroque spires, this one a 1737 confection called the guglia di San Domenico by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro.

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