Anna wanted me to mention that many of the streets are alleyways not even as wide as the pavements back home. There are scores of churches down each of these, many stories high with impressive monumental facades. Unfortunately you can't get back far enough from these to really take them in. Naples is actually very competitive when it comes to ornate interiors (I'm looking at you Gesu Nuovo cathedral!) but from outside these magnificent buildings look like they're crumbling away. There is also a lot of graffitti on them - can you imagine! Someone even had the nerve to spraypaint on the statue of Dante. Quite sad.Anyway, we had a bit of an orienteering day:
Gesu Nuovo - 16th C baroque Jesuit church. Ornate overdrive!
S. Chiara - 14th C medieval church, restored following Allied bombings.
Piazza Dante - the eponymous author's statue and piazza square.
National Archaeological Museum - like a mini-Louvre, this museum is mostly famous for housing the treasure troves and mosaics/frescoes from Poempeii. Rightfully so, as these items are truly magnificent. The detail on the miniature mosaics is staggering, so fine as to appear like a painting. There are also many world-class Roman sculptures, such as many of the various emperors, but also giant figures from the Baths of Caracella in Rome. The greatest of these are the mammoth overwrought Hercules, and the multi-figured Farnese Bull. The latter depicts two men struggling with a large bull, as a woman cowers beneath. (In mythology, she is then tied to the underside of the bull to be killed. Grisly!)NZ WATCH: an expat recognised our kiwi at the museum. She is now living in Australia (tsk tsk).
2 comments:
Which statue? Emperor Augustus or the guy with the bull? I can tell you that the first statue has a freakishly small head!
We're going to see a statute soon called the VEILED CHRIST. See if you can find a pic on the net. The veil is fricken transluscent, and it's made from marble! Noone has yet figured out how the guy carved it :)
We saw the Veiled Christ today, but weren't allowed to take photos. We did buy a good postacrd though. The marble isn't transluscent, but a very good imitation. We think the stone might be oiled too, which would help. There are 2 other statues in the church which are also very good. One has a guy struggling to escape a net. How he carved all the net holes without breaking the marble is beyond me!
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