San Giorgio Maggiore is a basilica in central Naples, at the corner of Via Vicaria Vecchia and Via Duomo. A church stood on the site by the fourth century, first known as la severiana after Bishop San Severo of Naples. The present name dates to the ninth century and honors a martyred warrior who fought the Lombards.
A fire in 1640 destroyed part of the church, and Cosimo Fanzago led the reconstruction and reversed its orientation, so the current entrance is the former apse. He moved some granite columns here from Santa Maria degli Angeli alle Croci. The church was rebuilt again after the earthquake of 1694.
During the Risanamento of the nineteenth century, the right-side nave was removed to widen Via Duomo. The church keeps a marble seat of St. Severus made from spolia, frescoes by a young Solimena, and a thirteenth-century wooden crucifix.
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