Pappacoda Chapel
San Giovanni dei Pappacoda Chapel
In the lively pedestrian square of Largo San Giovanni Maggiore, where the gazes of university students from Palazzo Giusso meet the footsteps of travellers each day, rises an authentic lacework in stone that takes your breath away.
The Pappacoda Chapel is a pure gem of Neapolitan Gothic, commissioned in 1415 by Artusio Pappacoda, a powerful advisor to the Angevin court, as a family chapel and a place of eternal remembrance.
What immediately captures the eye is its majestic white marble portal, carved with such precision that it resembles lace. Created by the brilliant Antonio Baboccio da Piperno, the portal bursts into a rich array of angels, saints and floral motifs, standing out in breathtaking contrast against the bare stone of the façade.
Looking upward, the sense of wonder continues: watching over the chapel rises a superb Gothic bell tower, unique in Naples, adorned with dark piperno arches, elegant mullioned windows and ancient majolica fragments.
Pausing in front of this chapel, in one of the squares most loved by young Neapolitans, means admiring an eternal declaration of love carved in marble—a corner where the chivalric Middle Ages still lives on within the contemporary soul of the city.
INFO
ADDRESS: Largo San Giovanni Maggiore, 118
