From the sea, the most visible
structures in Naples are the museum of San Martino
and the fortress of Sant' Elmo, located on the
Vomero hill at the highest point in the city. The museum
used to be a monastery that was finished and inaugurated
under the rule of Queen Giovanna I
in 1368. It was dedicated to St. Martin, bishop of
Tours. During the first half of the sixteenth century,
propelled by the energies of the Counter-Reformation, it
was expanded. Later, in 1623, it was further expanded
and became, under the direction of architect Cosimo Fanzago, the
quintessentially Baroque structure one sees today.
Fanzago was responsible also for the small cemetery in
the courtyard; a cemetery ornamented by rows of skulls,
a typical Counter-Reformation memento mori—a reminder
of mortality.
[As of Jan 2015, the
original Gothic basements
and underground chambers are open.]
Under the French, the monastery was closed
in 1806 and was abandoned by the religious order. Today,
the museum houses a museum with a fine display of Spanish and Bourbon era artifacts, as well
as a recently restored presepe, or Nativity
scene, a display made up of thousands of finely wrought
eighteenth-century Christmas figures. It is the finest
display of its kind in the world. (Click here for more about
the presepe.) The green area directly below the
white San Martino museum is now separate (originally it
was the vineyard for the monastery). It is called the Vineyard of San Martino and
is a working garden/farm in the middle of the city(!),
hosting tours for all and summer activities,
especially for children.
Sant’
Elmo is the name of both the hill and the fortress
adjacent to the museum. The name is from an old
10th-century church, Sant’ Erasmo, that name being
shortened to "Ermo" and, finally, "Elmo".* [The
alternative etymology is that it comes the Spanish
Dominican saint, San Telmo.]
Although
there was a Norman watch tower from the 1100s on the
hill, a true fortress was not started until 1329 under Robert of Anjou; it was
completed in 1343, the year of his death. That fortress
was known as Belforte (image, left). The
strategic importance of the fortress was clear, and
Spanish viceroy, Don Pedro de
Toledo, had it rebuilt between 1537 and 1546. The
new fortress was on the same site, and though it is a
massive remake, especially the radical design (image,
below), it left intact some of the original Belforte
structure (the small village-like assemblage of
buildings on top of the new fortress, as seen in this
1582 image of the now Sant'Elmo castle,). The result was
a spectacular star-shaped castle with 12 cannons; part
of the six ramparts with "double-claw" design rest
against the rocky tuff of the hillside so that the
castle blends in with the surrounding environment. The
fortress was partially destroyed in 1587 when a
lightning strike caused the ammunition dump to explode,
killing 150 men in the process.
During the revolution of
1647, so-called “Masaniello’s
Revolt,” the Spanish viceroy took refuge in the
fortress to escape the revolutionaries. The people
stormed the fortress but failed to take it.
Sant’Elmo
was also a dramatic symbol of the short, turbulent
period of the Neapolitan
Republic (alias Parthenopean Republic), the local
version of the French Republic. The fortress was taken
by the populace in 1799 and the Republic was proclaimed.
A few months later, the revolutionaries were forced to
capitulate to Royalist forces under Cardinal
Ruffo. For a short period, Sant’Elmo had been a
bastion of freedom against Bourbon absolutism; now it
proved to be the prison and place of execution for a
number of the Republic’s supporters. The fortress has
been restored to public use since 1980 and houses the
"Bruno Molajoli" Art History museum.
[There
is a later entry on Sant' Elmo at this link.]
[*I acknowledge
etymological information from Libero Scinicariello of
Cleveland, Ohio: "... just a few miles up the road
in Gaeta, Erasmo is the patron saint and the
namesake for the Duomo. In local dialect, Erasmo
evolved into Raimo, and the church is referred to as
Santu Raimo."]
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This is a miscellaneous article on St. Martin of Tours, the eponym of the museum of San Martino. added 1 Jan 2020