What to See in Marcianise: Attractions & Sights

More places of interest

Castel Loriano

Castel Loriano, also called the castle of Marcianise, is a feudal castle on the south-western edge of the town. Its origin is medieval, but the date of construction is uncertain. The earliest mentions speak of a «castrum Marzanisii» belonging to the Church of Capua, and notarial documents from the years between 1366 and 1374 record the stays of Archbishop Stefano della Sanità. From the archdiocese it passed to Sergio Orsini, Duke of Acerra, and in 1390 it was a fief of Otto of Brunswick, fourth husband of Queen Joanna I; it then belonged for a long time to the Orsini.
What to see
The castle was renovated in the fifteenth century and much altered in later centuries. Still recognisable are the round corner towers, of Aragonese architecture, the perimeter walls with loopholes for firearms and, inside, the small church of Santa Maria Maddalena Penitente, formerly San Marcello, of uncertain date: the whole partly keeps the appearance it had at the end of the sixteenth century. The castle was once surrounded by a moat.
In 1506 it belonged to Baron Francesco Brancaccio, who used it as his residence; from 1536 it belonged to the Alamanni, who kept it until the abolition of feudalism in 1806.
Visiting
Today the castle is a private residential property under protection, and since the early two-thousands it has been half-abandoned, with cracked plaster and damp stains; the owners have begun an agreement with the Superintendency.
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A popular belief has it that Napoleon stayed in the castle, but there is no confirmation: the legend probably arose because many French soldiers lived there for a long time, when Marcianise was a seat of jurisdiction under Joachim Murat. The castle is also mentioned in Giuseppe Bonaviri's novel Il dormiveglia.
Castello Airola

Castello Airola is a medieval stronghold on the edge of Marcianise, south-west of the town, on the street that bears its name; it should not be confused with the castle in the town of Airola, in the Benevento area. It was probably built between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, in the same years as nearby Castel Loriano. On 26 May 1294 Charles II of Anjou granted the fief of Airola to Giletto Malbohe; in the early fourteenth century Robert of Anjou assigned it to Ingeranno and Riccardo Stella, archbishops of Capua, who made it their residence.
What to see
After several changes of hands the fief came to the Caracciolo, who carried out major restoration: under them comes the first mention of the castle proper, in 1501, and to them is owed its sixteenth-century appearance, inspired by Castel Nuovo in Naples. Of the original core you can recognise the crenellated watchtower, a portico that housed the storerooms, now hidden by plants, the main floor with its halls and stretches of the boundary walls. Beside it is a large rectangular courtyard, once planted with tobacco.
From the Caracciolo the castle passed to the Suardo, who held it for more than two centuries, and in 1731, by marriage, to the Guevara; the last feudal lord, Giovanni Guevara Suardo, styled himself «Duke of Bovino and Castel d'Airola».
Visiting
In the twentieth century the castle was sold, and today it is a private home: the present owners' works have greatly transformed it. On the same street is the small church of San Giovanni ante portam latinam, the only one still standing of the five known in the area.
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According to some scholars, defensive tunnels ran beneath the castle, for use in extreme need.
Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata

The church of the Santissima Annunziata stands in the centre of Marcianise, in the middle of a large rectangular square. The original design dates from the sixteenth century and is by Benvenuto Tortelli; a few decades later Matteo Salerno made some changes, completed around 1563. In the second half of the eighteenth century the church was restored and enlarged by Carlo Patturelli, Giuseppe Astarita and other architects.
What to see
The Renaissance façade dominates the square, closed on the left by the former hospital and to the south by the eighteenth-century Palazzo Tartaglione. The bell tower is not attached to the church: it stands at the end of a building on the right, and was built in 1574 in exposed tuff to a design by Ambrogio Attendolo, with three tiers separated by piperno cornices. The interior, a Latin cross, has three naves with six chapels on each side and three apses; the seventeenth-century ceiling of the nave and transept is of painted wooden coffers, with a turquoise ground and gilded rosettes.
The paintings are of the Neapolitan school: Massimo Stanzione's Annunciation behind the high altar, the Beheading of the Baptist by the Flemish painter Dirk Hendricksz, known as Teodoro d'Errico, Francesco Solimena's Assumption of the Virgin in the centre of the ceiling and, above the entrance door, Christ among the Doctors by Paolo De Majo, a painter born in Marcianise. The apse is frescoed by Nicola Malinconico, and the Baroque altar of 1703 is by Filippo Raguzzini.
Visiting
Mass times and opening hours should be checked with the parish.
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In the choir loft, under the last arch between the nave and the left aisle, is an organ built between 1766 and 1770 by a Neapolitan organ builder, with nine stops: it is housed in an older wooden case decorated with reliefs and gilding.