itineraries:

| romanesque and medieval | reinaissance | baroque | rococo |

Church of  S. Pietro  a Maiella

The subdivision and the schema of itineraries, answer to the need of placing the monuments within the historical period corresponded to the passage from a domination to another one in the city. It’s important to analyze in the historical-social situation of Romanesque period the premises of the artistic situation of Angevin Naples. After the shining moment of freedom and of art in the ducal period ( 763-1139 ) must be remembered the splendours of Middle Age, the bell tower of S. Maria Maggiore called of Pietrasanta, the mosaics of Byzantine inspiration of the Fonte Battesimale in Santa Restituta  and the medieval memory in low arches of the porches of via Tribunali that an ancient tradition wanted as centre of Principi di Bisanzio.  Naples  was reduced to a city of province during the  Norman and Swabian dominations. It was necessary to wait for 1266 to be elevated to capital of the kingdom with the king Charles 1 of Angiò. This event determined the total cultural renewal and the town planning expansion of the city. These reasons clarify the presence in  Naples of monuments of French Gothic style. The presence of French goldsmithes is represented by the bust and the reliquary of S. Gennaro in the chapel of the treasure in the cathedral (Duomo). But Angevins called also Italian artists such as Giotto, Simone Martini and Tino da Camaino to adorn the works erected by them. Florentine bankers financed such works: among them there was the young Boccaccio who here derived life experience, that then put in its Decamerone. The presence in Naples of Petrarca and its coronation as poet show the high level to which the local culture was arrived. 

Text of Gennaro Borrelli