The basilica of Santa Croce is the main Catholic place of worship in Torre del Greco, in the archdiocese of Naples: built at the start of the sixteenth century, it is the religious heart of the city and holds the remains of San Vincenzo Romano.
What to see
The façade, preceded by a broad flight of steps, is divided into two orders: the lower has six columns with Corinthian capitals and, in two niches, the stucco statues of Saint Helena and San Gennaro, made in 1858 by B. Calì; the upper order, lightened by a wide window, ends in a pediment. The interior, entirely in white stucco, is a Latin cross with three naves on five bays, a barrel vault over the central nave and a coffered dome over the crossing. On the high altar is a canvas by R. Ciappa of 1825 showing the finding of the cross; beneath the altar, in a bronze urn designed by Antonio Mennella, rest the remains of San Vincenzo Romano, parish priest of Santa Croce from 1795 to 1831 and canonised in 2018. In the transept are the altar of the Sacred Heart, in polychrome inlaid marbles of the mid-seventeenth century, brought from Naples at the start of the nineteenth century from the church of San Domenico Soriano, by then suppressed, and that of San Gennaro, patron of the city since the end of the seventeenth century. In the first bay of the left aisle is the monumental baptismal font of 1883, whose basin in Gargano breccia was given by Ferdinand IV from the Neapolitan royal collections.
The basilica replaced the old medieval mother church of Santa Maria Maggiore, called Santa Maria dell'Ospedale. A legend says the funds came from donations left by the citizens in barrels at the foot of a cross, but the title in fact derives from the relic of the True Cross that the church possesses. By the bull of Pope Leo X of 1517 it was declared a Regia Estaurita under the patronage of the old University of Torre del Greco, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was embellished by artists such as Cosimo Fanzago, Lorenzo Vaccaro, Luca Giordano and Francesco Solimena. The eruption of Vesuvius of 15 June 1794 destroyed much of the city: the lava flow, which reached the sea, brought the church down and buried the first order of the bell tower. San Vincenzo Romano promoted its reconstruction, begun in 1795 and concluded with the consecration in 1827, to a neoclassical design by the architect Ignazio di Nardo. Tradition tells that miraculous events accompanied it, among them the arrival of a mysterious ship from Libya loaded with timber offered free for the roof trusses. The church was visited by Pope Pius IX in 1849 and by John Paul II in 1990, and in 1958 it was raised to the rank of minor basilica.
Visiting
The basilica stands in the historic centre of Torre del Greco, which grew up around the church and the large square in front of it. Opening hours and times of services should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
Step into the chapel of the Addolorata: on its side walls are carved the names of all the inhabitants of Torre del Greco who were victims of the Second World War.
