San Gennaro dei Poveri
San Gennaro dei Poveri is a hospital in Naples in southern Italy.
Historically, San Gennaro dei Poveri was the first Hospice for the Poor in Naples. It was founded in 1667 and intended to be a great "poor house", a place for at least some of the city's 10,000 mendicant poor at the time. It was a forerunner of the much more ambitious project along the same lines, the gigantic Royal Hospice for the Poor started in the 1750s.
Initially a church here had been built at the site of a temple to Vulcan. In the 8th century, it became a Benedictine monastery, by the 15th century, the monastery had fallen into disuse, and in 1468 was repurposed by Cardinal Oliviero Carafa into hospital for those afflicted with plague. After the plague of 1656, the hospital was expanded and by 1669 the viceroy Pietro Antonio of Aragon converted the hospital into a hospice for the poor.
Church of San Gennaro dei Poveri
A church at the site, San Gennaro extra Moenia, linked to the catacombs of San Gennaro, was present since the fifth century. When the relics of the saint were moved to Benevento, the church fell into disrepair until the Benedictine monastery was completed. The statues of St Peter and St Gennaro, by Cosimo Fanzago, were added to the facade of the church after 1669.[1]
References
- ↑ Comune of Naples, entry on church.