The church of the Corpo di Cristo stands on piazza Zanardelli in Nocera Inferiore. It was built in 1565 on land given to the diocese by the Lateran canons and began as a chapel dependent on San Matteo, from which it separated only in 1839, when it became an independent parish because of the growing population of its hamlet.
What to see
The façade keeps its original late sixteenth-century appearance; the interior is simple, and its art has been reduced by many thefts, but paintings of the Solimena school remain, and alongside stand the parish house and other seventeenth-century buildings. In the presbytery is Saint Januarius interceding to end the eruption of Vesuvius by Angelo and Francesco Solimena, of 1652, derived from a painting by Onofrio Palumbo: the saint holds the phial of blood beside Saint Joseph, among putti playing with the crozier and palm, with Vesuvius in the background and below the arms of the Borrelli family, who commissioned it.
Also in the presbytery is the Last Supper by Saverio Persico, of 1760, with apostles, servants and putti converging on Christ as he blesses the bread. The left aisle holds a Saint Cajetan appearing to a devotee, of 1650, from Campania, and the Expulsion of the demons from Paradise, again by Persico, with the Archangel Michael in armour and the demons with fiery red wings; the right aisle has an eighteenth-century Lamentation over the dead Christ by an unknown painter.
Visiting
The church is on piazza Zanardelli. Opening hours should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
Beside the entrance two cabinets hold statues of saints, including one of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, known as «God's vagabond».
