Gesù

October 01, 2006

The home church of the Jesuits in Naples is the church of the Gesù Nuovo, which sits on a large piazza of the same name at one end of a street that the locals call Spaccanapoli.

Photos of the outside.

This church was originally the palace of a local aristocrat, one of the princes of Salerno. When the Jesuits outgrew their old place in the city, the Gesù Vecchio, they decided to move into this place and convert it into a church. And what a church ...

The Gesù Nuovo really is a place of wonder.

If its original purpose was to demonstrate the wealth and power of the Jesuit order, I'm certain that it did the job. It is beautiful today. It must have stunned the local populace in the 17th century. I'm not sure I have ever before seen a church so laden with statues, beautiful paintings, precious stonework and gold. Just dazzling.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that Christ Himself would have approved ...

In the Piazza del Gesù is the second of the guglia that mark the center of the city.

I'm pretty sure that this one is the biggest of the three.