Santa Maria del Gesù was born for a wedding. In 1478 Countess Giovanna Ximenes de Cabrera funded the building of the church and Franciscan convent in order to celebrate there, in January 1481, the marriage of her daughter Anna to Fadrique Enrìquez, cousin of Ferdinand the Catholic. For centuries it was a centre of learning, a seat of studies in philosophy and theology; then, after the unification of Italy, in 1866 it was expropriated and turned into a prison — and so it stayed for 146 years.
What to see
The façade, of the early sixteenth century, has an ogival, strongly splayed portal, decorated with a fanciful iconography of sea creatures that scholars link to the art of the Iberian Levant; above, two elegant single-light windows of Moorish taste and a rose window. But the masterpiece is hidden behind: the two-order late-Gothic cloister, with columns each different from the next, is a unicum in southern Italy, with parallels only in Catalonia. Inside, the Riva chapel holds an altarpiece by Bernardino Nigro dedicated to Saint Anne and the Milanese saints, commissioned by the nobleman Cristoforo Riva.
Visiting
The reopening is recent and has the feel of a restitution: after 146 years as a prison, on 20 April 2011 the church was reopened to the public, and since 2016 the church and cloister can be visited again. It is one of those places that changed trade several times and have come back, at last, to themselves.
Our editors' tip
Don't stop at the church: ask for the cloister, the real reason to come this far. Its columns, each different from the last, have no equal in southern Italy. And look closely at the portal: among the carvings appear sea creatures, an unusual detail that reaches all the way to the coasts of Spain.
