San Lorenzo Maggiore Audio Guide

San Lorenzo Maggiore: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Basilica di San Lorenzo Maggiore

   Welcome to Basilica di San Lorenzo Maggiore, one of the oldest and most layered monuments in Naples. You are in the historic center, close to Piazza San Gaetano, at the crossing of Via San Gregorio Armeno and Via dei Tribunali. This is the precise geographic heart of the old Greek and Roman city, so you are standing at the center of the center. This is a journey above, below and inside the story of a city. The basilica you see today is a Gothic church from the Angevin age, but it stands on the remains of ancient Neapolis, a history that begins in the fifth century BC. The complex also includes a cloister and a museum, the Museo dell'Opera di San Lorenzo, which keeps the layers of history and art together. As you approach, look for the broad stone staircase that leads up to the entrance. Beside it rises the bell tower, carrying the coats of arms of the city's Sedili, the councils that once gathered right here when their presence was needed. Let's begin with what is beneath your feet.

2. 02

   The Buried City Beneath the Church

   What looks like a thirteenth century church hides an astonishing secret. Under it lie the remains of the Greco-Roman city of Neapolis, and below the later church also lie the remnants of a Christian basilica from the sixth century after Christ. Few places in Naples let you read so many centuries in a single vertical slice. In the excavations you can see public buildings, including what is understood to have been the public treasury, the Aerarium. You can also walk along ancient roads lined with tabernae, the small shops of Roman life. Among them are a laundry and a bakery. That detail is the delight of the place: grand history, yes, but also the everyday errands of people who needed clean clothes and fresh bread. A practical word: do not confuse these ruins with Napoli Sotterranea, the enormous tunnel system located nearby. They are separate experiences. Here the story is told through the excavations and the museum exhibits, which cover the archaeology of the site and the long history of the area around San Lorenzo.

3. 03

   An Angevin Gothic Church and an Architect Mystery

   Now come back up to the church itself. Naples had been left in a long state of neglect under the Normans and then the Swabians. With the arrival of Charles the First of Anjou came an urban, administrative, cultural and artistic rebirth. San Lorenzo was the first church in the city rebuilt in the unmistakable French Gothic style, brought in by the architects and craftsmen who followed him. The basilica took the form we see today in the late 1200s. Who designed the most important part of it, the apse and ambulatory area? Scholars do not agree. Giorgio Vasari credited Nicola Pisano. Gaetano Filangieri the younger proposed Arnolfo di Cambio. Others, noting similarities in construction and style with the church of Santa Maria Donnaregina, look in a different direction. The question remains open, which makes the elegant curve of the ambulatory even more intriguing to walk around. In this Gothic space you can still follow the thread of Naples's courtly past. Near the high altar, on the right side, stands the tomb of Catherine of Austria, first wife of Charles, Duke of Calabria, son of King Robert of Anjou. It is regarded as the first Neapolitan work by the sculptor Tino di Camaino.

4. 04

   Chapels, Tombs and Baroque Splendor

   The Gothic shell has gathered centuries of art and memory. At the center of the transept stands the marble high altar, a Renaissance work by Giovanni Merliano da Nola. At its center is Saint Lawrence, the martyr to whom the church is dedicated, with Saint Francis on one side and Saint Anthony on the other. In the chapel of the Madonna degli Angeli, frescoes dated to 1333 and 1334 and attributed to Antonio Cavarretto, a follower of Giotto, tell the life of the Virgin. Then the Baroque arrives. From the seventeenth century onward the church was reshaped, and you can see it clearly on the inner façade and in the third chapel on the left, with its rounded arch and colored marbles. The Cacace chapel was renovated in the 1640s, with Cosimo Fanzago commissioned for the work, and four of its sculptures are by Andrea di Bolgi, a sculptor from the Bernini studio in Rome. In the Cappellone di Sant'Antonio you can find two canvases by Mattia Preti. The church is also a gathering of Neapolitan lives. The philosopher and playwright Giovanni Battista Della Porta has his monument on the inner façade. Giovanni Barrile, a writer and friend of Petrarch, rests in the ambulatory, and the musician Francesco Durante is buried in the Saint Anthony chapel in the left transept. Some masterpieces once here, including Simone Martini's painting of Saint Louis of Toulouse crowning his brother Robert of Anjou, dated 1317, are now in the Capodimonte museum.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you step back into the lively streets around Piazza San Gaetano, take a moment to feel how many Napleses are stacked on this one spot: the Greek and Roman city, the early Christian basilica, the Angevin Gothic church, the Baroque chapels, and the cloister and museum that now tie them together. As you leave, look again at the stone staircase and the bell tower with the coats of arms of the Sedili, then glance toward the crossing of Via San Gregorio Armeno and Via dei Tribunali. You are at the center of the ancient city, and the architect of the apse still has no agreed name. Which layer will you follow next: the shops of ancient Neapolis, the Gothic ambulatory, or the Baroque marble?