| A fine example of artistic eclecticism, according to local tradition it was built by princes Filippo and Caterina of Taranto at the beginning of the 14th century to provide a fitting monument for a miraculous icon of the Virgin. The trial of the Templars of the Kingdom of Sicily took place in the still undecorated church in 1310. In 1568 archbishop Bovio allowed the Friars Minor (Franciscans) to settle in the adjacent monastery, which was completed between 1635 and 1638.
On the outside, the use of grey and golden sandstone creates fine geometric patterns of oriental inspiration. Inside, the church follows a more sombre Franciscan model with a single space. The frescoes include the Last Judgement by Rinaldo da Taranto on the counter-façade (early 14th century) and the Tree of the Cross on the left wall (mid 14th century), inspired by the precepts of St. Bonaventura. In an atmosphere still affected by the climate of the Crusades, other paintings on the walls show the nobles of the Kingdom of Naples paying homage to the Virgin.
In the apse is a cycle of painting showing the life of Christ from the late 14th century, which in terms of its narrative style recalls the painting of the late Comnenian period. In the scene with the two Marys at the Sepulchre there is a reproduction – extremely rare in western Christianity – of the Stone of the Unction, the bed of red marble on which the shrouded body of Christ was lain before burial. It was venerated in Ephesus by the pilgrims until about 1170, when the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos ordered it to be moved to Constantinople. It was lost after the sack of the city by crusaders in 1204 but was perhaps seen by Andrea Mantegna in some Lombard or Venetian monastery before the artist reproduced it in his highly poignant Lamentation of Dead Christ (1500). |