entry June 2003
Church of Sant' Eligio
The French Gothic
church of Sant’Eligio was built during the reign
of Charles of Anjou by the
same congregation that built the nearby Sant’Eligio
hospital in 1270. It is the first church built in
Naples by the Angevin French. Little remains of the
original structure. The arched passageway that opens
onto Piazza Mercato
(Market Square) is through the original façade of the
church and has since been incorporated into the
structure of the ancient hospital.
Many of the lines of the original structure came to light only in the course of restoration after the bombardments of WWII. Much of the painted ornamentation adorning the church only goes back to the risanamento, the great urban renewal of Naples in the last years of the 19th century. Sant’Eligio and a number other Gothic structures in the area were restored in this fashion.
It is interesting to me
how in the long history of a city such as Naples the
center of town shifts over the centuries. The Church of
Sant'Eligio at one time opened onto the most important
part of the city, Piazza Mercato (see here and here). This is where crowds
gathered, where revolutions started, and where public
executions were held. It is, today, anonymous and
totally ignored, having been cut off from the rest of
the city by the constructions of the risanamento.
It is also adjacent to the entry to the industrial port
of Naples and, as such, was heavily bombed in WW2. It is
a mile removed from where the great cruise liners
disgorge tourists and money into the new center of town,
Piazza Municipio.
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