22 Best Sights in Centro Storico, Naples

The beautifully restored 17th-century Basilica di Pietrasanta, a Cosimo Fanzago Baroque masterpiece built on the site of the Roman Temple of Diana, hosts regular multimedia exhibitions, but the star attraction here is the underground visit to a section of Naples’s oldest aqueduct. Four tours a day descend 40 meters below the busy Via dei Tribunali to large lavishly illuminated cisterns hewed from excavated tuff two millennia ago, still filled with running water (thanks to a collaboration with the city’s waterworks).

The dazzling funerary chapel of the Sangro di Sansevero princes combines noble swagger, overwhelming color, and a touch of the macabre—which expresses Naples perfectly. The chapel was begun in 1590 by Prince Giovan Francesco di Sangro to fulfill a vow to the Virgin if he were cured of a dire illness. The seventh Sangro di Sansevero prince, Raimondo, had the building modified in the mid-18th century and is generally credited for its current Baroque styling, the noteworthy elements of which include the splendid marble-inlay floor and statuary, including Giuseppe Sanmartino's spine-chillingly lifelike Cristo Velato (Veiled Christ).

One of the Centro Storico's defining sites, this octagonal church was built around the corner from the Duomo for a charitable institution seven noblemen founded in 1601. The institution's aim was to carry out acts of Christian charity like feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, nursing the sick, sheltering pilgrims, visiting prisoners, and burying the indigent dead—acts immortalized in the history of art by Caravaggio's famous altarpiece depicting the Sette Opere della Misericordia (Seven Acts of Mercy). Pride of place is given to the great Caravaggio above the altar.

The church of San Lorenzo features a very unmedieval facade of 18th-century splendor. Due to the effects and threats of earthquakes, the church was reinforced and reshaped along Baroque lines in the 17th and 18th centuries. Begun by Robert d'Anjou in 1270 on the site of a previous 6th-century church, the church has a single, barnlike nave that reflects the Franciscans' desire for simple spaces. Also found here is the church's most important monument: the tomb of Catherine of Austria (circa 1323), by Tino da Camaino.

Offering a stark and telling contrast to the opulence of the nearby Gesù Nuovo, Santa Chiara is the leading Angevin Gothic monument in Naples. The fashionable house of worship for the 14th-century nobility and a favorite Angevin church from the start, the church of St. Clare was intended to be a great dynastic monument by Robert d'Anjou. His second wife, Sancia di Majorca, added the adjoining convent for the Poor Clares to a monastery of the Franciscan Minors so she could vicariously satisfy a lifelong desire for the cloistered seclusion of a convent. This was the first time the two sexes were combined in a single complex. Built in a Provençal Gothic style between 1310 and 1328 (probably by Gagliardo Primario) and dedicated in 1340, the church had its aspect radically altered, as did so many others, in the Baroque period. A six-day fire started by Allied bombs on August 4, 1943, put an end to all that, as well as to what might have been left of the important cycle of frescoes by Giotto and his Neapolitan workshop. The church's most important tomb towers behind the altar. Sculpted by Giovanni and Pacio Bertini of Florence (1343–45), it is, fittingly, the tomb of the founding king: the great Robert d'Anjou, known as the Wise. Nearby are the tombs of Carlo, duke of Calabria, and his wife, Marie de Valois, both by Tino da Camaino.

Around the left side of the church is the Chiostro delle Clarisse, the most famous cloister in Naples. Complemented by citrus trees, the benches and octagonal columns comprise a light-handed masterpiece of painted majolica designed by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, with a delightful profusion of landscapes and light yellow, azure, and green floral motifs realized by Donato and Giuseppe Massa and their studio (1742).

Once a tavern, this building was rebuilt by the Monte di Pietà charity in 1616 as a church, and its two stories are fascinatingly complementary. As bare as the upper Church is lavish, the altar below-stairs is a stark black cross against a peeling gray wall. The nave covers what was a 1656 plague pit now set off by chains with four lamps to represent the flames of Purgatory. As the pit filled up, to accommodate more recent dead the skulls of earlier plague victims were placed on the central floor. So was born the cult of le anime pezzentelle (wretched souls). By praying for them, the living could accelerate these souls' way to Heaven, at which point the pezzentelle could intercede on behalf of the living.

During the 20th century, World War II left many Neapolitans with missing relatives. Some families found consolation by adopting a skull in their loved ones’ stead. The skulls would be cleaned, polished, and then given a box-type altarino.

If all this verges on the pagan, the Catholic Church thought likewise, and in 1969 the practice was banned. The altarini were blocked off and eventually abandoned. In 1992 the church reopened and most of the skulls were taken to Cimitero delle Fontanelle. Some still remain, like that of one Lucia, princess of skulls and patron of amore infelice (unhappy love).

Hemmed in on three sides, this cathedral is a trip through the city's history. Although the cathedral was established in the 1200s, the building you see was erected a century later and has since undergone radical changes—especially during the Baroque period. Inside, ancient columns salvaged from pagan buildings rise to the 350-year-old richly decorated false wooden ceiling (the original Gothic ceiling is 6 meters higher). Off the left aisle, step down into the 4th-century church of Santa Restituta, which was incorporated into the cathedral. Though Santa Restituta was redecorated in the late 1600s in the prevalent Baroque style, the Battistero (Baptistery) is the oldest in the Western world, with what some claim to be the most beautiful mosaics in Italy.

On the right aisle of the cathedral, in the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro, multicolor marbles and frescoes honor St. Januarius, the miracle-working patron saint of Naples, whose altar and relics are encased in silver. Three times a year—on September 19 (his feast day); on the Saturday preceding the first Sunday in May, which commemorates the transfer of his relics to Naples; and on December 16—his dried blood, contained in two sealed vials, is believed to liquefy during rites in his honor; the rare occasions on which it does not liquefy portend ill, as in 1980, the year of the Irpinia earthquake. The most spectacular painting on display is Ribera's San Gennaro in the Furnace (1647), depicting the saint emerging unscathed from the furnace while his persecutors scatter in disarray. These days large numbers of devout Neapolitans offer up prayers in his memory. The Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro houses a rich collection of treasures associated with the saint. Paintings by Solimena and Luca Giordano hang alongside statues, busts, candelabras, and tabernacles in gold, silver, and marble by Cosimo Fanzago and other 18th-century Baroque masters.

A stunning architectural contrast to the plain Romanesque frontage of other nearby churches, the strikingly austere, recently restored (2023) stone facade of this elaborate Baroque church dates to the late 16th century. Originally a palace, the building was seized by Pedro of Toledo in 1547 and sold to the Jesuits with the condition the facade remain intact. Behind the entrance is Francesco Solimena’s action-packed Heliodorus’ Eviction from the Temple. You can find the work of familiar Baroque sculptors (Naccherino, Finelli) and painters inside. The gracious Visitation above the altar in the second chapel on the right is by Massimo Stanzione, who also contributed the fine frescoes in the main nave: they're in the presbytery (behind and around the main altar).

With 86,111 square feet of exhibition space, a host of young and helpful attendants, and occasional late-night events, the Madre is one of the most visited museums in Naples. Most of the artworks on the first floor were installed in situ by their creators, but the second-floor gallery exhibits works by international and Italian contemporary artists. The museum also hosts temporary shows by major international artists.

I Girolamini is another name for the Oratorians, followers of St. Philip Neri, to whom the splendid church I Girolamini is dedicated. The church is part of a larger complex managed as the Monumento Nazionale dei Girolamini. The Florentine architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio designed I Girolamini, which was erected between 1592 and 1619; the dome and facade were rebuilt (circa 1780) in the most elegant neoclassical style after a design by Ferdinando Fuga. Inside the entrance wall is Luca Giordano's grandiose fresco (1684) of Christ chasing the money changers from the temple. The intricate carved-wood ceiling, damaged by Allied bombs in 1943, has now been restored to its original magnificence.

This impressive museum exhibits brilliantly restored works by late-Gothic, Renaissance, and Neapolitan Baroque masters. It incorporates the Baroque church of Santa Maria Donnaregina Nuova, which was started in 1617 and consecrated 50 years later for Franciscan nuns (les Clarisses), and the Gothic Donnaregina Vecchia, which was damaged by an earthquake. In more modern times the building was used as legal offices before being closed completely, and becoming prey to the occasional theft as well as bomb damage during World War II. In 2008 the space was officially reborn as a museum.

The last two works of Luca Giordano, The Wedding at Cana and The Multiplication of Loaves, both from 1705, are displayed on either side of the church's altar, which was moved from the original church. The central painting focuses on the life of the Virgin Mary, while the first chapel on the left houses French painter Charles Mellin's beautiful Immaculate Conception (1646). To the left of the nave is a space rich in Gothic and Renaissance statuary from the former church. Take the elevator upstairs to where the nuns once attended Mass, concealed from the congregation by screens. The works on display there follow the theme of life as an Imitation of Christ. There is also the chance to see Francesco Solimena's 17th-century roof frescoes close up, with floodlights showing off their restoration to maximum effect.

Fascinating 90-minute tours of a portion of Naples's fabled underground city provide an initiation into the complex history of the city center. Efforts to dramatize the experience—amphoras lowered on ropes to draw water from cisterns, candles given to navigate narrow passages, objects shifted to reveal secret passages—combine with enthusiastic English-speaking guides to make this particularly exciting for older children. Be prepared on the underground tour to go up and down many steps and crouch in very narrow corridors.

One of the Centro Storico's largest churches, this Dominican house of worship was originally constructed by Charles I of Anjou in 1238. Legend has it that a painting of the crucifixion spoke to St. Thomas Aquinas when he was at prayer here. Three centuries later a fire destroyed most of this early structure, and in 1850 a neo-Gothic edifice rose in its place, complete with a nave of awe-inspiring dimensions. In the second chapel on the right (if you enter through the north door) are remnants of the earlier church—14th-century frescoes by Pietro Cavallini, a Roman predecessor of Giotto. Note the depiction of Mary Magdalene dressed in her own hair, and, in front, the crucifixion of Andrew as a devil strangles his judge, the Prefect Aegeas, just below. Along the side are some noted funerary monuments, including those of the Carafa family, whose chapel, to the left of Cosimo Fanzago's 17th-century altar, is a beautiful Renaissance-era set-piece. The San Carlo Borromeo chapel features an excellent Baptism of Christ (1564), by Marco Pino, a Michelangelo protégé. Other interesting works are the unusual Madonna di Latte, in the Cappella di S. Maria Maddalena, and a beautiful Madonna by Agostino Tesauro in the Cappella San Giovanni. A Ribera painting in the San Bartolomeo chapel depicts the saint's martyrdom. Near the back of the church, looking like a giant gold peacock's tail, is the so-called Machine of 40 Hours, a devotional device for displaying the sacrament for the 40 hours between Christ's burial and resurrection.

Adjacent to the church is its brilliantly restored Dominican monastery, where Saint Thomas Aquinas studied and taught. Virtual photographs outside the Chapter Hall show how the monastery, parts of which date to the 13th century, would have looked before the suppression of monasteries under Napoleon. The hall itself contains a significant fresco of the Crucifixion by the late 17th-century Sicilian painter Michele Ragolia, and the ubiquitous Baroque master Fanzago is responsible for the stuccowork. Note the false windows, a work of optical illusion common to the period.

The standout work in the nearby Grand Refectory is Domenico Vaccaro's Last Supper mural, in which Christ comforts John while Judas, clutching a moneybag, glares at something else. Another mural in the  Refectory depicts a famous incident from Saint Thomas Aquinas's life here. Christ is shown directing at Thomas the words, Bravo Tommaso che parlasti bene di me. (Well done, Thomas, for speaking well of me.) Visible in the Refectory are the remains of the stations where the monks would wash their hands before eating, but more recently it served as a law court. Two Camorra bosses—Raffaele Cutolo and Pupetta Maresca—were sentenced here as late as the 1990s.

Also of note are the cloisters, originally for about a hundred monks, now less than five remain. It was here that Thomas Aquinas lived and studied and taught from 1272 to 1274. A magnificent doorway by Marco Bottiglieri marks his cell, now a chapel that can be visited as part of the guided tour.

Internationally renowned Neapolitan-Dutch street artist Jorit completed this 50-foot mural in September 2015 to honor the feast-day of the city's patron saint on the 19th. Where Spaccanapoli meets Via Duomo, politicized Jorit depicts the martyr wearing a backpack in homage to the immigration crisis and, in a nod to Caravaggio, used the face of a factory-worker friend. Jorit also has murals, including Diego Maradona and Che Guevara, in the Parco dei Murales in San Giovanni di Teduccio, 3 miles to the east, and in Vomero.

Every morning at 7:30 am (and 9:30 on Sunday), the Perpetue Adoratrici (Sacramentine nuns) beautifully sing early mass beneath Francesco de Mura's The Paradise, inside this late-17th-century church. Dressed in immaculate white and red habits, the nuns, at the end of the celebration, prostrate themselves before the altar, which stretches upward with layer after Baroque layer of Dionisio Lazzari's sumptuous gold and marble (1686), topped by the putti and the figures of Hope and Charity by Matteo Bottigliero (1733). Upon entering or exiting, take note of San Giuseppe dei Ruffi's dramatically Baroque facade, designed, as was the interior, by Lazzari, a renowned architect and sculptor. Hearing the nuns sing is a unique, if little known, Naples experience, and well worth rising early for.

This convent is one of the oldest and most important in Naples. Set on Via San Gregorio Armeno, the street lined with Naples's most adorable presepi, the convent is landmarked by a picturesque campanile. The nuns who lived here, often the daughters of Naples' richest families, must have been disappointed with heaven when they arrived—banquets here outrivaled those of the royal court, hallways were lined with paintings, and the church was filled with gilt stucco and semiprecious stones. Described as "a room of Paradise on Earth" by Carlo Celano and designed by Niccolò Tagliacozzi Canale, the church has a highly detailed wooden ceiling, uniquely decorated choir lofts, shimmering organs, illuminated shrines, and important Luca Giordano frescoes of scenes of the life of St. Gregory, whose relics were brought to Naples in the 8th century from Byzantium. The newly restored Baroque fountain with Matteo Bottiglieri's 17th-century Christ and the Samaritan Woman statues is in the center of the convent's cloister (entrance off the small square up the road). You can gain access from here to the nuns' gallery shielded by 18th-century jalousies and see the church from a different perspective, as well as to the Salottino della Badessa—generally not on view, as this is still a working convent—and other areas preserved as magnificent 18th-century interiors.

Like the nearby Santi Apostoli, this church was erected for the Theatin fathers in the late 16th century (from 1524), the period of their order's rapid expansion. This was another instance where Francesco Grimaldi, the (ordained) house architect, erected a church on the ruins of an ancient Roman temple, then transformed it into a Christian basilica. Spoils from the temple survive in the present incarnation, especially the two monumental Corinthian columns on the facade. An earthquake knocked down the original facade in 1688, and damage during World War II, coupled with decades of neglect, led to further deterioration that has since been reversed. Two large murals by Francesco Solimena in the sacristy have been restored. In the first, Simon Magus is depicted flying headlong down to Earth as biblical and Neapolitan figures ignore him. Similarly spectacular is the fresco depicting the imminent conversion of Saul: illuminated by a light-projecting cloud, the future Saint Paul tumbles off a horse in the picture's center. The richly decorated Santuario di San Gaetano is below the church, housing Saint San Gaetano's remains.

Erected in the 16th century atop a previous church, this building has evolved many times—from the church of San Severo into a private palace, a monastery later suppressed by Napoleon, a state archive, a World War II bomb shelter, and an earthquake-damaged relic—before a long and painstaking renovation restored its luster. To the right of the nave, high above a door, rests the tomb of Charles V's general—and original church benefactor—Giovanni Bisvallo. In addition to its aesthetic highlights, the complex also provides a telling lesson on mortality. Aboveground one can view the grandeur of monuments to the dead. Less grandly, a brief excursion downstairs reveals the scolatoi; these are draining holes where the recently deceased, seated upright and left to be drained of bodily fluids, were visited daily by Dominican monks seeking to reinforce their sense of the fragility of human existence.

Amid this church's graceful interior is the earliest evidence of the Renaissance in Naples: the funerary monument (1426–27) of Sant'Angelo's builder, Cardinal Brancaccio, sculpted by the famous Donatello and the almost-as-famous Michelozzo. The front of the sarcophagus bears Donatello's contribution, a bas-relief Assumption of the Virgin; upheld by angels, the Virgin seeming to float in air. Built in the late 1300s, the church was redesigned in the 16th century by Arcangelo Guglielmelli.

This Baroque church in a basic Latin-cross style with a single nave shares the piazza with a contemporary art school in a typically anarchic Neapolitan mix. The church, designed by the architect Francesco Grimaldi for the Theatin fathers and erected between 1610 and 1649, replaced a previous church, itself constructed on the remains of a temple probably dedicated to Mercury. Santi Apostoli is worth a quick peek for its coherent, intact Baroque decorative scheme. Excellent paintings (circa 1644) by Giovanni Lanfranco each narrate a different martyrdom, and there are works by his successors, Francesco Solimena and Luca Giordano. An altar in the left transept by Francesco Borromini is the only work in Naples by this noted architect whose freedom from formality so inspired the exuberance of the Baroque.

This piece is by controversial street artist Banksy. Located on the wall of the birthplace of 17th-century philosopher Giambattista Vico, a stencilled La Madonna con la Pistola sits beside a religious shrine to the Virgin Mary.