Sant'Aniello a Caponapoli

Sant'Aniello a Caponapoli stands on the acropolis of the Greek city. A structural glass floor reveals walls dating to the fourth century BC; the church also preserves a Renaissance marble altar and is dedicated to a patron saint of Naples.

Why it matters

This is the highest point of ancient Neapolis, where Greek sacred buildings stood. The church occupies the area of the city's old walls; below it are archaeological strata from the Greek, Roman and early medieval periods. A Renaissance rebuilding in 1517 added carved marble altars by Neapolitan sculptors.

What to notice

The glass floor reveals Greek walls of the fourth to third centuries BC, Roman structures in opus reticulatum and early medieval burials, exposed when a collapse opened the ground and preserved during restoration. The church grew around a seventh-century Marian chapel, whose site became the transept in the T-shaped plan. The Carrara marble main altar, carved between 1517 and 1520 by Girolamo Santacroce for Giovanni Maria Poderico, shows the Madonna delle Grazie with the Christ Child between Saints Cataldo and Aniello. Nearby are Saint Dorothy (1534) by Giovanni da Nola, a relief of the Madonna enthroned by Annibale Caccavello and Giandomenico D'Auria, a twelfth-century painted wooden crucifix, a Calvary painted by Michele Curia in 1551 and two late-seventeenth-century canvases by Gaetano Martoriello.

Context and history

The dedication reaches back to the sixth century. Sant'Agnello (Aniello in Neapolitan) is remembered as abbot of San Gaudioso at Capo Napoli. Tradition credits him with defending the city against a Lombard siege; he died between 593 and 600 and was buried nearby. His cult spread from the ninth century under Bishop Athanasius I, and he is honoured as a patron of Naples. Tradition places the church's origin in his parents' prayers before an image of the Virgin on the site of a temple of Demeter. The building was enlarged in 1517, damaged by Second World War bombing and again by the 1980 earthquake, and only returned to worship in 2011 after a long recovery; since 2013 Legambiente Campania volunteers have worked with the Curia, now through MUDD, to restore works of art to their original positions.