The Gerolamini before the Gerolamini. An Urban Palimpsest in Medieval Naples

The Gerolamini complex in Naples preserves historical-artistic testimonies of great relevance and represents itself a remarkable work in terms of size and historical-urban value. The church and the convent, outcomes of a centuries-old collaboration between different skill sets and artists, are the paradigm of the transformations that took place during the Counter-Reformation in the ancient and regular urban plan of Naples. Between the end of the Sixteenth and the Eighteenth centuries, the Oratorian complex erased a heterogeneous and multi-layered part of the city, designing the religious insula. The process of carrying out the work, slowed down by controversies and civil trials, makes the Gerolamini buildings a privileged observatory for the knowledge of the pre-Trentinian urban landscape, particularly thanks to the help of the rich archival documentation linked to judicial events. The goal of the contribution is to outline the history of the urban transformations of the current Oratorian insula from antiquity to the late sixteenth century, by integrating the reading of indirect sources with the study of physical traces. There is an absence of exhaustive publications on the subject and, in general, of monographs on the architecture of the complex. Therefore, the analysis of the state of the places before the arrangement of the Gerolamini is an essential starting point for the understanding of one of the most important Neapolitan complexes and the of the multi-layered urban landscape.

Keywords: Gerolamini, Religious Insula, Urban Landscape, Medieval Naples, Mercatus Vetus, Archival Research.

Elena Vitagliano, I Gerolamini prima dei Gerolamini. Un palinsesto urbano nella Napoli medievale in "STORIA URBANA " 171/2022, pp 5-33, DOI: 10.3280/SU2022-171001