The church of Santa Maria libera nos a scandalis is the parish and main church of Quarto, in the diocese of Pozzuoli, and one of the oldest places of worship in the Phlegraean Fields. The Marian cult is recorded from 1013, when a deed of sale mentions the place called «Santa Maria ad scandola»; the church was consecrated in 1243 by Pietro, bishop of Pozzuoli. In 1627 it was entrusted to the Agostiniani Coloriti, who built a small convent beside it. Because Quarto was a hamlet of Marano, and so part of the archdiocese of Naples, a long dispute arose between the two dioceses, settled by the Holy See only in 1882 in favour of Pozzuoli; the church became a parish on 9 December 1888.
What to see
Today's building is not the medieval one: the old church collapsed in the night between 22 and 23 March 1893, because of badly executed enlargement works, and was rebuilt to a design by the engineer Umberto Cassitto with the contributions of the faithful, until its completion in 1905. It is of tuff masonry, with a single nave of two cross-vaulted bays closed by a semicircular apse under a dome; four chapels open on each side, and the last two hold the altars of Saint Gerard and the Sacred Heart.
The interior is rich in stucco on vaults, arches and walls, with a floor of veined marble and black insets. Behind the high altar is the polychrome statue of the Madonna.
Visiting
In 2004 a restoration gave the façade back its original appearance, removing the klinker cladding added between the seventies and eighties and rebuilding the belfry. Mass times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
According to one tradition the church arose from a vow of Frederick II: during a stay at the baths of Pozzuoli, in 1227, the emperor is said to have built a hunting castle in the Quarto basin and, having escaped the charge of a wild boar, raised a church to the Virgin. Beneath the present building, restoration work has found the foundations of the thirteenth-century church.
