Basilica di San Domenico Maggiore, Naples

San Domenico Maggiore is a church and monastery belonging to the Dominican Order, opening onto the square that shares its name in Naples’ historic centre. Its character is Gothic, while its story reaches back to an earlier church on this site, San Michele Arcangelo a Morfisa, which dates from the tenth century. Look at the entrance and imagine the rebuilding begun under Charles II of Naples: work continued from 1283 to 1324, producing the structure associated with Angevin Gothic design.

Later alterations added Baroque decoration, before restoration in the nineteenth century returned the building toward its earlier Gothic appearance. The adjoining monastery carries an extraordinary intellectual history. It housed the original University of Naples, and Thomas Aquinas taught theology here in 1272.

As local tradition has it, a sacristan witnessed Aquinas lifted from the ground in prayer before an image of the crucified Christ in 1273. Inside, the Brancaccio Chapel contains frescoes by Pietro Cavallini, painted in 1309. The sacristy preserves forty-five tombs connected with the Aragonese royal family, including King Ferdinand I.

The Treasure Chamber, created in 1690, holds royal objects, Dominican relics, ceremonial clothing and embroidered textiles. This is a church where architecture, scholarship and dynastic memory remain tightly joined.