Naples - Church of the Girolamini

Right off the via Duomo is the church and convent of the Girolamini. It is actually quite a large complex but it is lost in the jumble of Neopolitan streets. We came across it quite by accident; walking south on the vico Girolamini to the via Tribunali we came to a little piazza where I initially spotted the church of Santa Maria della Colonna. It was only after I began to approach that façade that I realized the building behind me was a huge late baroque fantasy of a building.

The façade was constructed in the late 18th century, but the two cloisters predate this by two hundred years or so. It is by the master architect Ferdinando Fuga, whose other work in Naples includes the Albergo dei Poverei, he is probably most known for the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

I think that the façade is one of the most beautiful in Naples. The pavilion like bell towers with their onion domes and the superimposed orders of the pilasters all work together in perfect harmony.