Naples - San Domenico Maggiore

San Domenico Maggiore

San Domenico Maggiore- The exterior has an almost Moorish, southern Spain look to it. The sun bleached brick with tiny windows and the trefoil crenellations add to the illusion. The interior is quite elaborate but in the gothic manner rather than the fanciful baroque that abounds in most Naples churches. This is due to a restoration project in the 19th century to remove the baroque decoration and return the church to its Gothic austerity. Which in Neapolitan terms means lots of gilt pointy arches and marble clustered columns, golden capitals and a coffered ceiling with a profusion of carving and indeed more gilt.

There has been a church and monastery on this site for a very long time. In the 13th century it was handed over to the Dominican monks and after a while they decided they were in need of a bigger church. The result you see before you was completed in 1324.

Once the attached monastery was the seat of the ever migratory University of Naples and Thomas Aquinas taught theology here from 1272 until he began his deadly journey to the Council of Lyon in 1274.