The Girolamini stands directly across from the Cathedral of Naples on Via Duomo, with its facade on Via Tribunali. Archbishop Mario Carafa asked the disciples of the Oratory of St Philip Neri to come, and they bought the Palazzo Seripando site in 1586 for 5,500 ducats. The Florentine architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio began construction in 1592, and the church was completed in 1619. The style is a sober Florentine Renaissance, on a Latin cross plan with three naves.
Ferdinando Fuga completed the facade in 1780, with statues of St Peter and St Paul by Giuseppe Sammartino. The first cloister is called the maiolica cloister for its tiles, and a larger cloister leads to the art collection and the Biblioteca Girolamini.
Bombing in February 1944 badly damaged the gilt ceiling. In 2013 the library's director, Marino Massimo de Caro, was convicted of looting it.
Comments