entry Oct 2005
Santa
Maria dei Sette Dolori - Our Lady
of the Seven Sorrows
Many churches in Naples catch your eye by
their size or splendour—the Cathedral
of Naples or the Church of San Francesco di
Paola, to name two obvious examples.
A few churches, however, are noteworthy simply by
their location. If you stand anywhere along the
considerable length of the street known as Spaccanapoli,
that arrow-straight road through the old
historic center of the city —go ahead... stand
as far east as you can go, past via Duomo, and turn
back and look west— you will see an itsy-bitsy piece
of white that seems to anchor the road you are on,
pinning it fast at a point about half-way up the
side of the Vomero hill. That is the Church of Santa Maria dei Sette
Dolori (Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows). If
you set out to walk to that church from the western
end of "Spaccanapoli" (in reality, an extension of
the old lower decumanus
of Greco-Roman Naples), you will march off 1128
paces —if your legs are exactly the same length as
the poor flunky drudge who had to measure it in the
Middle Ages. ("Sire, I calls it 500 fathoms, give or
take a cubit. C'mon, walk way up there?")
There was a smaller chapel on
the spot in the 1400s, but the present building goes
back to a newer church completed in 1583.
Historically, the church had its moment of
prominence in 1850 when Pius IX personally crowned
the statue of the Madonna and promoted the church to
the status of "Basilica". Culturally, it had a grand
episode, as well: in 1707, the Blessed Virgin of the
Seven Sorrows was added to the list of the many
patron saints of the city, and a tradition was begun
of a yearly festival held in September. The festival
of 1736 was marked by a musical composition by
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
—his Stabat Mater,
composed especially for the occasion. It is the last
work he left us from his tragically brief life, and
the work remains to this day one of the most
remarkable pieces in the repertoire of sacred music.
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