BASILICA DI SANTA CHIARA

The Franciscan monastery was built in 1310 by order of King Robert of Anjou and his very devout wife Sancia de Mallorca. The religious complex then consisted of the Basilica of Santa Chiara and two convents, that of the Poor Clares and that of the Franciscan Friars Minor.

The basilica. Built in 1310 in the Gothic style by Gagliardo Primario, the basilica became the pantheon of the House of Anjou in Naples; several funerary monuments of the XIV century can still be admired there. In the eighteenth century it was profoundly remodelled under the direction of the architect Domenico Vaccaro, who gave it a Baroque face in keeping with the tastes of the time. Destroyed by the bombings of August 4, 1943, the basilica was rebuilt under the direction of Mario Zampino, respecting the original Gothic style. Note the massive and sober façade, decorated with a rose window and preceded by a pronaos with three pointed arches. Inside, the nave is high and vast, with a bare nave flanked by ten side chapels on each side. Numerous carved funerary monuments, the most notable of which are the royal tombs at the back of the building. In the centre, the funerary monument of Robert d'Anjou, a work of the Bertini brothers, Florentine sculptors. Today fragmentary, it was the most imposing tomb of the whole peninsula in the Middle Ages. On the left, the tomb of Maria Durazzo and, on the right, two funerary monuments by the Sienese sculptor Tino di Camaino: the tomb of Charles the Duke of Calabria and that of his wife Maria de Valois. On the counterfaçade and at the entrance to the presbytery there are some remains of 14th century frescoes, which show Giotto's influence on Neapolitan painters. At the back of the presbytery, the choir of the Poor Clares (unfortunately not open to the public) preserves fragments of frescoes attributed to Giotto himself; he was, in fact, called in 1326 to decorate the walls of the building.

The religious complex. The entrance is at the back of the basilica, on Via Santa Chiara. First you reach the magnificent cloister of the Poor Clares. The alleys of its garden are flanked by benches and octagonal pillars entirely covered with 18th century majolica (30,000 tiles!). The harmony of the tones of yellow, green and blue was intended to match the colours of the environment: the yellow of the lemons, the green of the wisteria, the blue of the sky. While the pillars bear vegetal motifs, the backs of the benches are illustrated with joyful scenes of daily life: work in the vegetable garden, scenes of country life, the sea, parties with dances and masked figures (attention: it is forbidden to sit on them!), secular themes which were to remind the cloistered sisters of life outside the convent. Only one scene features a nun: she is busy feeding the cats in the cloister. As for the ambulatory, it is entirely covered with 17th century frescoes depicting Franciscan stories. The Museo dell'Opera di Santa Chiara is at the back of the cloister. It retraces the life and history of the monastery, as well as that of Naples during the Angevin domination. There are many 14th century sculptures, including fragments of tombs, a pulpit and a long bas-relief frieze that adorned the basilica and survived its bombing in 1943. From the museum you can also access the archaeological area with the remains of a Roman thermal building from the 1st century AD.