Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata

On the tuff edge above the sea at Vico Equense stands the Santissima Annunziata, cathedral of its own small diocese for nearly five centuries. The only Gothic church on the Sorrentine coast, it preserves the memory of the Equense bishops, the tomb of jurist Gaetano Filangieri and an underground exhibition on the town's ecclesiastical past.

Why it matters

The Annunziata was founded, probably between 1320 and 1330, by Bishop Giovanni Cimmino, who moved the episcopal seat here from the older church of the Marina d'Equa below. From that moment the building was the cathedral of the diocese of Vico Equense — the institution that gave the town its civic rank — and it remained so until the Equense see was suppressed and its territory united with Sorrento, within whose archdiocese, now Sorrento–Castellammare di Stabia, the church is still listed as the "Antica Cattedrale". Its architectural interest is equally specific: the official portal describes it as the only example of Gothic sacred architecture on the Sorrentine coast, which makes the pointed arches of its interior a rare sight between Naples and Amalfi.

What to notice

The church's features reflect successive historical layers:

• The Gothic structure itself: tall pointed arches on slender supports, a single hall of a kind unusual along this coast, where Baroque and Lombard tastes prevailed.
• The eighteenth-century façade, rebuilt under Bishop Paolino Pace, which dresses the medieval body in later clothing.
• The sixteenth-century bell tower rebuilt by Monsignor Paolo Regio, a bishop celebrated as a man of letters; his plaque lies beneath the arch leading to the churchyard.
• Sacristy frescoes painted in 1788 at the order of Monsignor Pace show the bishops of Equense. Where Monsignor Michele Natale's face would be, a small angel raises a finger for silence. Natale was hanged in Naples on 20 August 1799 as a martyr of the Neapolitan Republic; the fresco was altered so that his image would not be venerated.
• The tomb of Gaetano Filangieri, the Enlightenment jurist author of "The Science of Legislation", who died at the Castello Giusso in 1788.
• An eighteenth-century Annunciation canvas, repositioned high on the central nave after restoration.

Below the church, an underground room holds an exhibition on the history of the building and the Equense diocese, known as the Museo della Memoria.

Context and history

The church's later centuries were troubled. The building needed complex restoration work that kept it closed for more than twenty years; the campaign concluded on 26 August 1995, when the church reopened for worship. The underground exhibition gathers liturgical furnishings, stone materials and documents that trace the diocese whose bishops were portrayed upstairs. The former cathedral and its exhibition preserve the memory of the old Equense church.