Santa Maria della Sanità, Naples

Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità
Basilica di Santa Maria della Sanità (Italian)

Façade of Santa Maria della Sanità.
Basic information
Location Naples, Campania, Italy
Geographic coordinates 40°51′35″N 14°14′56″E / 40.8597°N 14.2490°E / 40.8597; 14.2490Coordinates: 40°51′35″N 14°14′56″E / 40.8597°N 14.2490°E / 40.8597; 14.2490
Affiliation Roman Catholic
District Archdiocese of Naples
Ecclesiastical or organizational status Minor basilica
Architectural description
Architectural type Church

The Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità is a basilica church located over the Catacombs of San Gaudioso, on a Piazza near where Via Sanità meets Via Teresa degli Scalzi, in the Rione of the Sanità, in Naples, Italy. The church is also called San Vincenzo or San Vincenzo della Sanità, due to the cult of an icon of San Vincenzo Ferrer, also called locally O' Monacone (the big monk).


History

The church was originally attached to a Dominican monastery founded in 1577. The church was built in a centralized Greek-cross plan from 1602 to 1613 using the architectural designs of Giuseppe Nuvolo.

Dome of Santa Maria alla Sanità.

The main altar is elevated and accessed via flanking Baroque-style spiraling staircases, all sheathed polychrome marble. The entrance to the catacombs is beneath the altar, which was elevated above the site of the original chapel at the site.[1]

The interior is decorated by painters such as:

The original church was connected to the veneration of San Gaudioso, a bishop of Abitina in the Roman province of Africa, who died in Naples in c.451 after being set adrift from the north African coast by the Vandal King Genseric. In the 1500s, a 6th-century image of the Madonna and Child was uncovered here, and led to the establishment of this church.

The marble pulpit dates from 1677 to 1705. The organ, now in disuse, dates from the early 1700s.[3]

References

External links

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