Madonna Nera
Positano
FamousSacred art
The story
In the church of Santa Maria Assunta a Byzantine icon with a dark face keeps watch over the sea: legend says it was she who gave Positano its name.
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More gems in Positano
Sacred artChiesa di Santa Maria Assunta
Positano (SA)
In the heart of Positano, the dome of yellow and green majolica rises above the roofs; inside, the Byzantine icon of the black Madonna watches over the village facing the sea.
- Nature & hiking
Montepertuso
Positano
Above Positano, a hole carved in the rock pierces the mountain and frames the sky: legend credits it to the Madonna, who defied the devil.
Views & panoramasLi Galli
Positano
Three islets offshore where Homer placed the sirens, and where later Léonide Massine and Rudolf Nureyev chose their own refuge on the sea.
- Free beaches
Spiaggia di Fornillo
Positano
A path sheer above the sea leads away from the Spiaggia Grande to the pebble cove the people of Positano keep for themselves, in the shade of the torri saracene (Saracen watchtowers).
- Free beaches
Torre Trasita
Positano
The Saracen tower rising on the spur between the two beaches, a sentinel of stone now turned private home, closes every postcard of Positano.
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.