Chiesa di San Giorgio

San Giorgio is a Baroque church in Salerno, known for its frescoes by Angelo and Francesco Solimena, a 1523 panel by Andrea Sabatini and an early medieval apse fresco discovered beneath its floor.

Why it matters

The church belongs to the former Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio and preserves layers of Salerno's religious history. Its Baroque interior is considered among the city's finest, while excavations after the 1980 earthquake revealed an apse with paintings dating from before the tenth century.

What to notice

The single nave is covered by a barrel vault frescoed by Angelo and Francesco Solimena in the second half of the seventeenth century. Francesco also painted scenes of Saints Tecla, Archelaa and Susanna and a canvas of Saint Michael the Archangel. Andrea Sabatini's 1523 panel depicts the Virgin and Child with Saints Augustine, Scholastica and Benedict and an evangelist. Gilt stuccoes by Nicola d'Acunto date to 1694–95; the high altar combines polychrome marble and mother-of-pearl inlay. The statue of Saint George and the dragon is attributed to Pietro and Bartolomeo Ghetti, while paintings by Giovanni Battista Lama decorate the counter-façade and transept.

Context and history

The church's dedication dates to the eighth century, when it was built on the foundations of an earlier church. A late seventeenth-century renovation gave the monastery and church much of their present Baroque character. Structural work after the 1980 earthquake exposed the older apse beneath the present floor.