Abbazia di Santa Maria della Ferrara
Vairano Patenora (CE)
Hidden gemSacred art
The story
The first Cistercian abbey of the Kingdom of Naples lies dying among the fields: under the broken vaults survives the fresco of the burial of Malgerio Sorel, and beside it the face of the hermit pope Celestino V.
Access
FREE, no signposting; occasional visits with local associations
More gems in Vairano Patenora
- History & archaeology
Taverna della Catena (l'incontro del 26 ottobre 1860)
Vairano Patenora (CE)
Here, at a dusty crossroads in front of an eighteenth-century tavern, the army's official war diary places the handshake that made Italy — while the schoolbooks go on calling it the meeting of Teano.
- Villages
Borgo abbandonato di Marzanello Vecchio
Vairano Patenora (CE)
A stone village born around the year 1000 and emptied out without anyone knowing why: what is left are walls devoured by brambles and the little church of San Nicola, still standing guard over a borgo (old village) of ghosts.
More gems: Sacred art
Sacred artCappella Sansevero (Cristo Velato)
Napoli (NA)
Beneath a veil of marble that still seems to breathe, Sanmartino's Cristo Velato rests in the chapel's half-light, and the whiteness of the stone deceives every eye.
Sacred artDuomo di Napoli
Napoli
Three times a year the city holds its breath as the blood of San Gennaro waits to liquefy, among Gothic naves and the gold of the chapel devoted to him.
Sacred artCappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro
Napoli
Behind a bronze gate lie silverware, gems and the jewel-studded mitre of the saint: a treasure heaped up over centuries by the devotion of Naples.
Sacred artChiesa del Gesù Nuovo
Napoli
The facade of pyramid-cut piperno stone hides symbols carved into the blocks, while inside the Baroque bursts out in marble and in the memory of the physician Giuseppe Moscati.
Sacred artChiostro di Santa Chiara
Napoli
A garden of pillars clad in yellow and blue majolica, where lemon pergolas and eighteenth-century scenes painted on the tiles keep the noise of the city at bay.
- Sacred art
Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco
Via Tribunali 39
Bronze skulls stand guard at the entrance, and down in the hypogeum the cult of the anime pezzentelle (adopted souls of the dead) still leaves flowers and prayers beside abandoned crania.