Naples Cathedral

About

Naples Cathedral, in Italian the Duomo di Napoli and officially the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, is the principal church of Naples and the seat of its archbishop. Across the city it is most often called the Cattedrale di San Gennaro, in honour of Saint Januarius, the patron whose memory shapes the liturgical and civic life of Naples.

The present building was raised in the Angevin Gothic style at the command of King Charles I of Anjou and rose through the reign of Charles II between 1285 and 1309, reaching completion under Robert of Anjou in the early fourteenth century. It was built upon the foundations of two earlier palaeo-Christian basilicas, whose remains can still be traced beneath the floor.

Within lies an extraordinary gathering of art and devotion. The Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro carries frescoes by Domenichino and Lanfranco, altarpieces by Domenichino, Massimo Stanzione, and Jusepe Ribera, a high altar by Solimena, and a bronze railing by Fanzago. Elsewhere are an Assumption by Perugino, canvases by Luca Giordano, and the fourteenth-century frescoes of the Minutolo Chapel mentioned by Boccaccio.

The cathedral preserves a vial of the blood of Saint Januarius, brought out three times each year on the first Saturday in May, on 19 September, and on 16 December. The dried substance is said to liquefy each time, and tradition holds that failure portends misfortune. On 21 March 2015 the blood liquefied during a visit by Pope Francis.

History

King Charles I of Anjou began the cathedral in 1272 in the Angevin Gothic style, and construction continued under Charles II before completion in the early fourteenth century under Robert of Anjou, raised over the remains of two earlier paleo-Christian basilicas. The fifteenth-century portal and its sculptures by Tino da Camaino survive at the entrance, though the facade itself was rebuilt in a neo-Gothic style by Enrico Alvino in the late nineteenth century. Pope Innocent IV, King Charles I of Naples, and a long line of archbishops are buried within, alongside Saint Restituta in the paleo-Christian basilica that still opens from the north aisle.

Significance

The cathedral's Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro gathers Baroque work by Domenichino, Jusepe Ribera, Massimo Stanzione, and Francesco Solimena around the vial said to hold the martyred bishop's blood, brought out for the faithful on the first Saturday of May, on 19 September, and on 16 December. Neapolitans have watched for the blood's liquefaction at each of these three gatherings for generations, and the day it fails to loosen is still spoken of as an omen for the city. As the seat of the Archbishop of Naples, the cathedral remains San Gennaro's living shrine as much as it is Santa Maria Assunta's.

Architecture

Angevin Gothic basilica with a 15th-century portal, a neo-Gothic facade reworked by Enrico Alvino in the late 19th century, and a Baroque Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro