COMPLESSO MONUMENTALE DI SANTA MARIA LA NOVA

Access through the Minor Cloister, on the left of the church. The Franciscan complex, founded in 1279, consists of the Church of Santa Maria La Nova, two cloisters and a museum of contemporary religious art (Museo ARCA). The 13th-century church was extensively rebuilt in the 16th century. It has a splendid coffered ceiling, gilded and decorated with 46 paintings made by the artists active in the city at the end of the 16th century, an interesting testimony to the pictorial tendencies in Naples before the arrival of Caravaggio. In the first chapel on the right, frescoes by Battistello Caracciolo (1578-1635) depicting scenes from the Old Testament. To the left of the church, a wide arcade opens onto the large chapel of San Giacomo della Marca, whose sumptuous decoration dates back to the 17th century, with a vault painted by Massimo Stanzione. The Minor Cloister is particularly charming, with its frescoed ambulatory that houses funerary monuments from the 15th and 16th centuries. For some years now, the curious have been stopping in front of a tomb decorated with a dragon's head because, according to researchers, it contains the remains of Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula! The adjoining areas house various rooms for events and conferences as well as the ARCA Museum. The second, larger cloister is accessible from outside the complex on the left. Very elegant with its white walls with stuccoed frames, it houses the offices of the Province.