CHURCH OF SS MARIA EGIZIACA IN FORCELLA, NAPLES
About 150m from
City Focus Apartments
Close to the popular Forcella district of Naples, between Piazza Garibaldi and Piazza Nicola Amore, we discover the Church of Santa Maria Egiziaca in Forcella (also called Elm).
Upon entering, one immediately feels a sense of refuge, so strong is the contrast between inside and outside, between chaos and quiet, poverty and pomp.
The church is part of a larger complex which also included a monastery where the current one stands. Ascalesi Hospital.
THE MONASTIC COMPLEX
The monastic complex was founded in 1342 thanks to the will of the Queen Sancha of Aragon, wife of Robert of Anjou, to shelter repentant prostitutes. Over time, the monastery gradually lost its charitable character and took in honest young women and daughters of the city's nobility, considerably increasing its wealth.
The queen wanted to dedicate the church and monastery to Saint Mary of Egypt who had been a sinner like Magdalene and who had then spent forty-seven years of a very harsh hermit's life in the desert of Egypt.
The monastery was incorporated, in the first half of the 20th century, into the Ascalesi Hospital. A health care facility that specializes primarily in the treatment of ringworm (a parasitic skin disease).
The only intact elements of the ancient monastery are the entrance and the cloister, where we find three stucco busts of Saint Augustine, Saint Monica, and Saint Mary of Egypt. Opposite the hospital entrance is the ancient Scapigliata fountain.
THE CHURCH
The various renovations gave the church a Baroque layout, with an elliptical plan and a single nave with surrounding chapels. With the major works of the Renovation to open the Straight line (Corso Umberto I), the church, which previously overlooked Piazza dell'Olmo, retained its old entrance and obtained a side façade, in eclectic style, parallel to the new street.
Inside, the four organs and the small decorated choir stand out, as well as paintings by the major Neapolitan Baroque painters. To the sides of the large windows in the presbytery are some paintings by Paolo De Maio; while in the third chapel on the right are two paintings by Francesco Solimena. Madonna and Saints Angelo and Chiara of Montefalco e Saint Cajetan and Saint Francis.
The main altar (1713) is the work of Gennaro Ragozzino and features a canvas by Andrea Vaccaro, dated 1668, entitled The communion of Saint Mary of Egypt. On the sides of the altar are placed The Conversion e The Saint's flight from Egypt, both paintings by Luca Giordano. Inside, on the first chapel on the left, a silver statue finished in gold collects a relic of the Saint.
CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA EGIZIACA IN FORCELLA
Address: Corso Umberto I, 208 – 80138, Naples