The Santissima Annunziata Maggiore stands in the Pendino quarter near Forcella in Naples and is a minor basilica. In 1318 Sancia of Majorca, queen consort of King Robert, ceded land to a lay congregation to establish a foundling institution. A larger church was begun by 1513. A fire in 1757 destroyed nearly all of it, except the sacristy, the Treasury chapel and the Carafa chapel.
Luigi Vanvitelli designed the reconstruction, and his son Carlo completed it. The church was consecrated in 1774, and a concave facade was added in 1782. The interior is Neoclassical, a sober statement against the Baroque, with coupled Corinthian columns and coffered barrel vaulting.
The church has long been tied to an orphanage. A restored basket room recalls the revolving wheel that received abandoned infants. The foundling wheel was abolished in the 1870s.
Comments