Naples - Gesu Nuovo

Gesu Nuovo: Consecrated by the Jesuits in 1601this is a rather unique church in Naples. 

The facade is fascinating. It looks unfinished, as if it is lacking a pediment. The giant c-scrolls in piperno stone seem prepared to support something a little more grand than nothing.  The strange pyramidal ashlar work on the facade is, well strange, compared to the fluid and flamboyant architecture that abounds in Naples. The stone is very dark and gives the building a prison like air. If it were not of the three marble trimmed baroque portals and the same number of marble trimmed baroque windows inserted into the facade it would be exceedingly bleak. The central portal is quite a work of art with only two cherubs and two reclining figures, and a cartouche and some scroll work and some bass reliefs. 

The strange apperance is apparently from the fact that the church was built as a palace in the fourteenth century. Not sure exactly how it became a church. But I think that anything left in Naples for long enough will become a church. 

On an interesting note, we saw a palace in Rome that had very similar pyramidal ashlar work and the Faceted Palace at the Kremlin in Moscow (designed around the same time by an Italian architect) has much the same finish.  I remember reading when I was there that the architects that had worked on the Kermlin had come from Italy. It is very possible that they had seen this building.