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 Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's admini ...

, 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 Giuseppe Nuvolo (born Vincenzo Nuvolo, also known as Fra' Nuvolo; 1570–1643) was an Italian architect, an exponent of the Mannerist and early Baroque architecture, active mostly in Naples. He entered the Dominican Order in 1591, but designed w ...

The main altar is elevated and accessed via flanking

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including th ...

-style spiraling staircases, all sheathed in polychrome marble. The entrance to the crypt or

catacombs Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire. Etymology and history The first place to be referred ...

is beneath the altar, which was elevated above the site of the original chapel at the site. On the left of the nave is an elevated polychrome marble pulpit, designed by Dionisi Lazzari. The crypt, once site of a paleochristian chapel, was supposedly the burial site for San Gaudioso, a bishop of North Africa. The crypt has ten shallow altars surmounted by frescoes by Bernardino Fera. The interior of the upper church and chapels are decorated by painters such as: *

Giovanni Balducci Giovanni Balducci, called Il Cosci after his maternal uncle, (c. 1560 — after 1630) was an Italian mannerist painter. Biography Born in Florence, Balducci was trained by Giovanni Battista Naldini. Under the guidance and supervision of Vasar ...

(''St Peter Martyr'' in right 2nd chapel) *

Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini (c. 1572 – 12 December 1645) was an Italian painter and sculptor who continued painting in a late-Mannerist style, mainly active in Naples and Genoa. He is also known by Azzolino or Mazzolini or Asoleni. Life and w ...

(''Virgin of the Rosary'' and a ''Condemnation of the Albigensian Heretics'' in the large chapel and an ''Annuciation'' in 3rd chapel on the left), * Andrea Vaccaro (''Marriage of St Catherine'' in right 4th chapel and ''St Catherine of Siena receives Stigmata'' in right 5th chapel) * Girolamo de Magistro (''Santa Lucia'' left large chapel) * Giovanni Vincenzo Forli (''Circumcision'' in large chapel on left) *

Luca Giordano Luca Giordano (18 October 1634 – 3 January 1705) was an Italian late-Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence, and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain. Earl ...

(''San Nicola with saints Ambrose and Ludovico Beltrando below'' in the first chapel on the right, ''Sermon of San Vicenzo'' in right 3rd chapel beside the original 5th century icon; also painted ''Virgin with St Rosa'' in left 2nd chapel, and a ''St Hyacinth a cui porge una scritta "gaude fliimi hyacinte"''. He also painted a ''St Pius V with Dominican Saints'') *

Pacecco de Rosa Pacecco De Rosa (byname of Giovanni Francesco De Rosa; 17 December 1607 - 1656) was an Italian painter, active in Naples. Biography He was a contemporary of Massimo Stanzione or, according to others, a pupil of him. De Rosa was influenced by hi ...

(St. Thomas of Aquino) *

Gaspare Traversi Gaspare Traversi (c. 1722 – 1 November 1770) was an Italian Rococo painter best known for his genre works. Active mostly in his native city of Naples, he also painted throughout Italy, including a stay in Parma. Gaspare appears to have be ...

(ovals in 3rd chapel on left) * Agostino Beltrano and his wife Aniella de Rosa (San Raimondo da Pennafort in first chapel on left) *Also works by Anna Maria Bova,

Francesco Solimena Francesco Solimena (4 October 1657 – 3 April 1747) was a prolific Italian painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen. Biography Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino in the province of A ...

, Giovanni Pisani, and Filippo Donzelli. 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 Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric ( la, Gaisericus, Geisericus; reconstructed Vandalic: ) was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), ruling a kingdom he established, and was one of the key players in the di ...

. 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. Entry in Churches of Naples
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References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maria Sanita, Naples Basilica churches in Naples Roman Catholic churches completed in 1613 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy Church buildings with domes Rione Sanità 1613 establishments in Italy