Naples Day Two

Naples Day Two

With a whirlwind of new sights and smells we started our day off at the Duomo of San Gennaro. Before entering Jesse gave us a history of the Duomo. The Duomo is a 13th century Gothic style cathedral dedicated to Naples’ most important saint, San Gennero. The cathedral includes the 4th century Basilica St. Restituta, which now serves as a side chapel of the main cathedral.

Once inside Jesse took us on a tour of the cathedral. We looked at the interior paintings of the Duomo and paintings by Lan Franco. In this area I finally got the chance to hear mass in English—I was so excited!! Next we got to see the bones of Saint Gennaro which were nicely placed on display and each was labeled. Descending a stairway in the basilica we took an archeological tour of the remains of a Greek city. Here we got to see a Greek road worn by countless wagon wheels, remains of mosaics and a drainage system. Upon ascension, we made our last stop of the church at the baptistery. The baptistery is considered to be one of the most ancient in the west. It was neat; in the middle of the circular room the baptistery pool was in the center encompassed by a ceiling of extraordinary mosaics. The mosaics depicted scenes from the New Testament and had many early Christian symbols.

The next stop of the day was the 18th century Sansevero Chapel. This was one of the most unique chapels that we have visited thus far. The small chapel consisted of allegorical Baroque style statues. One of the statues that I liked which was not an allegory was Giuseppe Sammartino’s Veiled Christ. I just stared in awe at what an artist could do with marble; the veil over Christ looked so real. Another highlight were these two perfectly preserved skeletons, to me they were creepy but very interesting. They were preserved so well because of an innovative experiment and we could see the organs, arteries, and nervous system. I tried to get a photo of the corpses, but my sneaky tactics did not work for one of the workers caught me. Luckily, Lisa got one.

After a long break filled with shopping, we reconvened at 3:00 and walked to the Palazzo Reale, and Castle Nuovo. The Palazzo Reale built in the 1600s served as the palace of the Spanish Viceroys. The palace is the first thing that you see when you walk into this huge traffic-free piazza. At the far end of the piazza and opposite the palace is the church of San Francesco di Paola. The architectural building style of the church was taken from the Pantheon. To me, it resembled the Vatican square in front of St. Peters because of the curve style of the façade.

The last stop of the day was the Castle Nuovo. Here we analyzed and discussed the triumphal arch of Alphonso, which was a spark contrast to the castle.

After the discussion we were free for the weekend. Thank you Jesse for the amazing tour of Naples.

-Christina