|
The church of San Giovanni Maggiore
is one of four such prominent early Christian basilicas
in Naples. (The others are the churches of San Giorgio Maggiore, the
Santi Apostoli, and S. Maria Maggiore. (Although S. M. Maggiore claims to
be the oldest, that claim cannot be resolved
with any certainty.) At least the earliest version of
San Giovanni Maggiore is from 324 on what was the site
of an earlier Roman temple. Legend has it that the
Constantine, himself, personally ordered the
construction of the church in thanks for his daughter's
having escaped from a shipwreck. Even if that is
apocryphal, the church is very, very old and is an
important part of the early Christian fabric of the
city.
The first
known rebuilding of S. Giovanni Maggiore was carried
out in the late 500s. The speculation is that, since
that was still in the times of Byzantine
Naples under Belisarius, the church must have
taken on a distinct eastern flavor in terms of architecture and interior
ornamentation, most of which was then covered over by
later Norman and then Angevin builders. The last major
rebuilding of the church was under the sculptor and
architect, Dionisio
Lazzari in 1685. It was a major Baroque
rebuilding that did not leave much of the original
structure intact. The church survived into the 20th
century as a house of worship, but has now been closed
for decades to the public although parts of the
various outer surfaces have been restored. Within San Giovanni Maggiore, there
are still paleo-Christian fragments in the semi-circular
apse (photo, above). The main altar was done by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro in
1743. The interior still holds significant works art,
but there is also a long list of works that have simply
disappeared over the years.
to main index
to art portal
to history portal |
The other three basilicas (above) are
accessible, but San Giovanni Maggiore is closed,
dilapidated and virtually impossible to find. Even if
you find it, it is difficult to appreciate historically
since it has been overbuilt with centuries of other
construction and half-construction. It is, today, in no
real sense, at all recognizable as the important
historical monument that it is. In the centuries before
the building of the