SANTA CHIARA, Church

Now go back to Piazza del Gesù Nuovo. After admiring the façade of the Church of Santa Chiara with its beautiful portico with three arches and the large circular window above, get ready to explore the interior, which is considered one of the Gothic wonders of Naples. Unfortunately, World War II bombings severely damaged the exuberant eighteenth-century Baroque decorations, which in subsequent restorations were removed to bring back the original 14th-century structure.

The interior is vast and austere, with the typical simplicity of the first Franciscan churches: a single nave with side chapels, and the partition wall behind the altar that separated the public from the Choir of the Nuns, which was reserved for the cloister nuns.

Santa Chiara was the favored burial site of the Angevin sovereigns of Naples, and is famous for the Gothic tombs with baldachins that are preserved there and are partly intact. The most spectacular is without a doubt that of Robert of Anjou, which forms a scenic background to the church behind the main altar; it was made by Tuscan artists in the mid-1300s and is one of the largest complexes of Gothic funerary sculpture in Italy.

To its sides you can admire other tombs from the same period, also by Tuscan masters. To the left you can see the tomb of Maria di Durazzo, and to the right those of Carlo di Calabria and Maria di Valois, which have few precedents. A parade of unbelievably beautiful 14th-century sculpture!...