Castellammare di Stabia Co-Cathedral: The City’s Principal Church
Site at a Glance
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- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Italian, Kingdom of Naples, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page33 sections
History
The Castellammare di Stabia Co-Cathedral is the city’s principal church in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy, and shares cathedral status within the Archdiocese of Sorrento-Castellammare di Stabia. Building work began in 1587, while the church’s present Latin-cross plan emerged during a major transformation between 1875 and 1893. Dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, it is also a parish church serving several other churches in the city.
Predecessor Churches and Plans for a Replacement
Before the present cathedral, the city’s church stood in several locations. Its earliest site was near Varano Hill; it was later moved close to the castle and eventually established in the Quartuccio area. An earthquake in 1436 damaged the building at Quartuccio and prompted proposals for a replacement. A civic commission chose architect Giovanni Donadio to design a new cathedral in 1517, but the plan did not proceed. A second effort, initiated by Bishop Antonio Laureo in 1569, also failed.
Ludovico Maiorano, who became bishop in 1581, sold the ruined cathedral near the castle to help pay for a new one. In 1587 the city approved construction at Quartuccio, on the remains of the earlier church. A tax of one tornese per kilogram, a small-denomination coin, was levied on meat, oil, cheese, and other food sold in the city or at the Royal Customs House. The project was assigned to architect Pietro Antonio De Sanctis and carried out by Santoro Cortolano and Paolo Fasano. The cornerstone was laid on 22 November 1587.
Construction and Consecration
Progress was slow as funds repeatedly ran short, and further taxes on residents helped keep the work going. The church opened in part for worship in 1643, when noble families were granted private chapels. Work and additions continued over many generations. An organ was installed in 1668 and definitively arranged in 1774; an entrance atrium was added in 1713. Work on the main altar took place from 1753 to 1760, and Bishop Giuseppe Coppola consecrated it on 12 April 1760.
The church still lacked a bell tower in 1774. A proposal to adapt an existing tower met resistance from the bishop, who would have had to surrender about two metres of land. After royal intervention, a separate tower was erected on municipal property in 1782. Its construction cost 7,323 ducats.
Nineteenth-Century Transformation
Between 1875 and 1893, Bishop Petagna directed a comprehensive remodelling. The work established the Latin-cross plan and added the transept, the church’s crosswise arm, and the presbytery, the area around the main altar. It also created the Chapel of Saint Catello in place of the former Crucifix chapel. Built in 1879 to a design by architect Ignazio Rispoli under engineer Giovanni Rispoli’s direction, the chapel’s construction exposed an early Christian burial ground, road sections, and thresholds from Roman houses. The area became known as the Christian Area.
Bishop Sarnelli solemnly consecrated the cathedral in 1893 and dedicated it to the Assumption of Mary. Saint Catello, traditionally regarded as a late-antique bishop of Stabia, is venerated as the city’s patron saint. The cathedral is the principal church of Castellammare and a co-cathedral, meaning that it shares cathedral status within its archdiocese. As a parish church, it also has responsibility for Gesù e Maria, Maria Santissima del Caporivo, Santa Maria dell’Orto, Santissimo Crocifisso al Rivo, and Santissimo Crocifisso e Anime del Purgatorio.
Later Changes and Devotional Traditions
The church was restored in 1930 and again in 1980 after damage caused by the Irpinia earthquake. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament received a complete restoration in 1996. The Ara Pacis chapel, whose name means “Altar of Peace,” was commissioned by the priest Raffaele Vanacore and built between 1924 and 1928 to a design by Giuseppe Pandolci. It was initially dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and was intended chiefly to commemorate local people killed in the First World War.
A nativity scene was traditionally set up in the left aisle during the Christmas season and remained there until shortly after Saint Catello’s feast on 19 January. For some decades after the Second World War, it was large enough for people to move among its figures, and shipyard workers took part in assembling it.
Remains
The church is a basilica arranged around a central nave, two side aisles, and a transept. Its marble-decorated entrance, rows of chapels, painted vaults, altars, and sculpted devotional works give the interior a layered appearance shaped by successive periods of construction and embellishment.
Entrance and Nave
Façade and entrance
The façade is faced with marble and has three arches resting on four pillars. They form a shallow entrance atrium reached by steps of piperno, a volcanic building stone used in Campania. The central arch is larger than its neighbours, framed by two columns with capitals, and topped by the city’s coat of arms. A clock and two small bells sit on the parapet. Three bronze doors, made by the Florentine sculptor Antonio Berti and donated by the Banca Stabiese in 1985, close the entrances. The central door is larger and more elaborately decorated than the side doors.
Central nave and rear gallery
The central nave is flanked by two narrower aisles, with five chapels opening from each side aisle. A floor of white and grey marble combines square and octagonal sections; a former burial place for the city’s priests lies at the centre of the nave. Five arches on either side rest on ten piperno columns decorated with stucco, medallions, and gilding. Vincenzo Paliotti’s three frescoes, dated 1893, show episodes from Saint Catello’s life: his imprisonment in Rome and visit from Pope Gregory the Great, who held office from 590 to 604; his release; and his return to Stabia. The return scene is the largest. Ten surrounding crescent-shaped panels, called lunettes, depict virtues associated with the saint, while verses from a psalm run along the nave’s friezes.
At the rear is a funerary monument with a sculpted portrait of Tommaso Angelo d’Arco. Nearby marble plaques recall Pope Pius IX’s visit to Castellammare on 22 October 1849, Bishop Giuseppe Coppola’s support for renovation in 1760, and the church’s enlargement between 1887 and 1893. The organ stands on a gallery carried by four columns, with paintings of Noah and Abraham beside it.
Chapels and Devotional Objects in the Left Aisle
Baptistery chapel
The Baptistery contains a marble baptismal font and an unfinished canvas by Giuseppe Bonito showing Saint Peter receiving the keys. The painting was acquired in 1888 on the advice of the painter Domenico Morelli. Two tempera paintings by Francesco De Nicola depict the Baptism of Jesus and Jesus with children. A marble column with a marble capital, dating to the early Christian period, was found during excavation for the Chapel of Saint Catello.
Chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes
Once dedicated to Saint Cajetan, the chapel centres on a stucco-and-cork reproduction of the grotto at Massabielle, with statues of the Virgin Mary and Bernadette in prayer. Two tempera paintings by Francesco De Nicola, dated 1929, show the apparition at Massabielle and a procession with the Blessed Sacrament, the consecrated Eucharist reserved for Catholic worship. A painting of the Virgin with Saints Thomas and Cajetan, formerly in this chapel, now hangs in the left arm of the transept.
Chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
This chapel was under the patronage of the Longobardi family and was formerly dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel. Angelo Mozzillo’s 1793 altar painting shows the Virgin freeing souls from Purgatory. Tempera paintings of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus and Saint Louise de Marillac decorate the side walls. A marble plaque records a restoration in 1853.
Chapel of Saint Francis de Sales
Formerly under the patronage of the Cotticelli family, the chapel contains a wooden statue of Saint Francis de Sales and two tempera scenes from his life. Salvatore Franciosa painted the scene on the right in 1932; Francesco De Nicola painted the one on the left.
Holy Crucifix chapel
A seventeenth-century wooden crucifix shows Christ with his head turned slightly to the left and his feet fixed to the cross by one nail. Large wounds mark his side and chest. Nineteenth-century wooden statues of Saint Blaise and Our Lady of Sorrows occupy the side niches. The latter, made between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, combines a body of tow with wooden head, hands, arms, feet, and legs. It has crystal eyes and wears a black dress edged with gold lace. Formerly kept in the Ara Pacis chapel, it was dressed on Good Friday in a black silk garment embroidered in gold and styled after Spanish clothing. A doorway in the central wall connects the chapel to the old sacristy, a room for vestments and liturgical objects.
Nativity scene
The seasonal display in the left aisle comprises about 70 figures, ranging from 90 centimetres to 1.5 metres tall. They date from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries and have been restored. Some are by Giuseppe Sammartino and belonged to Bishop Francesco Petagna’s private collection. Costly fabrics, also used for clothing, dress the figures.
Chapels in the Right Aisle
Chapel of Saint Nicholas
Founded by the De Rogatis family in 1268, this chapel bears the family’s heraldic arms at the sides of the transept. Its altar painting by Giovanbattista Spinelli depicts Saint Nicholas of Myra, an early Christian bishop revered as a saint. Salvatore Mollo’s 1776 side-wall frescoes show Saint Barbara kneeling in a white tunic and red mantle with a martyr’s diadem, and Saint Anthony of Padua kneeling before the infant Jesus on a cloud. A statue of the Deposed Christ stands at the altar’s foot.
Chapel of the Rosary
The chapel first belonged to the Cacace family and passed to the Giordano family in 1825. Its 1570 altar painting of the Virgin of the Rosary is attributed either to Ludovico De Maio or to an unidentified sixteenth-century painter. Giovan Camillo Cacace brought it from the De Caro family chapel in Naples’s Basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore, where it replaced the original with a new painting. The life-size figures show the Virgin with Saints Catherine of Siena, Lucy of Syracuse, and Margaret of Antioch on one side, and Saints Dominic of Guzmán, Francis of Paola, and Francis of Assisi on the other. Cracks in the painting correspond to joins in the wooden boards beneath it.
Two sixteenth-century paintings on the side walls by Giovan Vincenzo D’Onofrio of Forlì del Sannio depict the Assumption and the Nativity. In the first, the apostles gather by the Virgin’s empty tomb while she sits on a cloud throne. In the second, Mary wears red and blue, Joseph prays, and shepherds attend. A funerary chapel for Bishop Agostino D’Arco is set into the left wall.
Chapel of the Holy Family
Under the patronage of the cathedral chapter, the body of clergy attached to the cathedral, this chapel has an eighteenth-century group of Saint Anne, Saint Joachim, and the child Mary by an unknown artist. The figures’ busts are papier-mâché, their heads, hands, and feet are wood, and their clothing is plaster. Giacinto Diana’s 1802 painting of the Visitation of the Virgin hangs on the left wall. The right wall holds a painting of Saint Philip Neri inspired by Guido Reni’s work in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. Bishop Giuseppe Coppola commissioned it between 1750 and 1760.
Chapel of the Immaculate Conception
A wooden statue of the Immaculate Conception gives the chapel its name. It was donated either by Bishop Petagna or by Monsignor Angelo Maria Scanzano. A relief made in 1838 on the left wall shows the young Mary being presented at the Temple, with her parents Anna and Joachim behind her; a nineteenth-century statuette of the infant Jesus stands below. The matching relief on the right depicts the Annunciation, with Mary and the archangel Gabriel, above a papier-mâché statue of Saint Antoninus.
Chapel of Saint Catello
Larger than the other aisle chapels, this space is approached from an ambulatory, a passage or walkway associated with a larger architectural space. The passage contains the tombs of Bishops Agostino D’Arco and Francesco Saverio Petagna and two bronze plaques commemorating the 1906 eruption of Vesuvius and a flood in the area in 1764. A short passage separates the chapel from the ambulatory and leads toward the rectory and sacristy. Medallions of Castellammare’s bishops decorate its ceiling.
Frescoes by Paolo Amato cover the chapel’s dome and ceiling. The dome shows the Glory of the Saint; the ceiling coffers depict the twelve apostles. Four triangular panels portray the cardinal virtues: Prudence with a mirror and lamp, Justice with scales, Fortitude with a shield, and Temperance gathering a palm. The central altar is made of bronze and marble. Beneath its table is a third-century early Christian sarcophagus depicting the Good Shepherd. A wooden statue of Saint Catello, made in 1609 by an unknown artist, stands above the altar.
Two works by Francesco Filosa, made in 1957, depict the 1906 Vesuvius eruption and a war scene dated 1940. Vincenzo Paliotti’s frescoes show the Virgin among angels and the archangel Michael appearing to Saints Catello and Antoninus on Mount Faito. Two cross-shaped reliquaries on the side walls were made in 1882 by Luigi Prezioso and Francesco Galante at Father Brunone’s request. Other niches contain a recent statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague and a nineteenth-century wooden statue of Pope Saint Clement, brought from the church of the Virgin of Saletta in Sant’Antonio Abate. The statue has long white hair and a beard, crystal eyes, pontifical clothing, and a wooden quill. Two large windows contain coloured-glass depictions by Paliotti of the city’s patron saints Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Vincent, and Francis Xavier.
Left Transept
Chapel of the Sacred Heart
The left arm of the transept is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A late nineteenth-century wooden statue by Reccia of Naples shows Christ with a youthful bearded face, wearing a blue tunic and pale-blue mantle, with a flaming heart on his chest. Vincenzo Paliotti painted two vault scenes in 1891: Jesus among crowds who suffer and, in a larger fresco, the Sacred Heart appearing to Saint Margaret. Near the large window is Paliotti’s fresco of Moses and Elijah.
Blessed Sacrament chapel
This chapel has an octagonal plan. Its main altar holds a painting, attributed either to Jusepe de Ribera or Andrea da Salerno, of the Trinity between Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. The altar dates to the eighteenth century, while its nineteenth-century tabernacle is made of Sicilian agate, lapis lazuli, and diaspore. Other features include a 1518 ciborium, a canopy-like structure over an altar, attributed to Andrea Ferrucci, a seventeenth-century container for holy oils, and a depiction of Saint Peter fishing.
Paintings on the dome depict the Last Supper, manna in the desert, Melchizedek’s sacrifice, and the angel bringing bread to Elijah on Mount Horeb. The chapel was completely restored in 1996.
Ara Pacis chapel
Jusepe de Ribera’s painting of the Deposition was given by a count to Bishop Sarnelli. Six marble plaques list local men killed in the First World War. Near the altar are four helmets, six muskets, two cartridge cases, and a cannon associated with the war. The chapel also contains tempera frescoes by Salvatore Franciosa dated 1925, a votive lamp made by shipyard workers and suspended from the ceiling, and an iron entrance gate.
Right Transept
Chapel of Saint Joseph
The right arm of the transept is dedicated to Saint Joseph. Reccia of Naples’s wooden statue depicts him as an older man in a purple tunic and brown mantle, carrying the sleeping Jesus. Two vault frescoes by Paliotti, dated 1890, portray the Glory of Saint Joseph and his patronage. A fresco of an elderly Joseph and King David is near the large window.
Chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel
This octagonal chapel contains a marble statue of the archangel formerly housed in the church on Mount Faito. The statue may be medieval. Tradition says that Pope Gregory the Great gave it to Saint Catello in the sixth century. Tempera paintings by Salvatore Cozzolino show the archangel rescuing Saint Peter from prison and driving Satan from Moses’ tomb. The ceiling depicts Jacob’s ladder, the fall of the rebellious angels, angels calling the dead to judgment, and three angels appearing to Abraham.
A wooden choir, also called the winter choir because the cathedral chapter met there in cold weather, was made between 1904 and 1920 to Giovanni Rispoli’s design.
Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows
Formerly called the Nativity chapel, this space contains a nineteenth-century statue whose face, hands, and feet are wood and whose remaining body is papier-mâché. A painting by Ribera of the Adoration of the Shepherds hangs on the left wall and resembles a work by the same artist in the Louvre. On the right wall, a marble monument by Francesco Jerace commemorates Bishop Sarnelli.
Presbytery, Main Altar, and Dome
Main altar and choir
The eighteenth-century main altar is decorated with coloured marble and topped by an Assumption canvas by Nunzio Rossi, also from the eighteenth century. Seven apostles appear in the painting: four look into the empty tomb, while three turn toward the Virgin, who rises on a cloud surrounded by childlike decorative figures called putti and by cherubs. Two eighteenth-century paintings by unknown artists hang on the side walls. They show the sacrifice of Isaac on the right and Hagar watching her son Ishmael die in the desert at Beersheba on the left.
A wooden choir surrounds the main altar and was brought from the Church of Peace in Castellammare. Canons used the upper tier of seats; clergy serving in weekly rotation sat below. Iron rings in front of the stalls held candlesticks. A spittoon was also fitted there and has long been closed for hygiene reasons. Five large windows open in the vault. Their curved upper panels, or lunettes, bear five Marian symbols in Byzantine style: the Spiritual Vessel, Vessel of Honor, Morning Star, Rose of Jericho, and Lily of the Valleys. Three frescoes dated 1888 show Saint Joseph asleep while Mary contemplates, the Presentation of Mary at the Temple, and the Virgin crowned by Jesus. The central vault fresco portrays Mary rising from the tomb; the corners contain the early Church Fathers Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, and John Chrysostom.
Dome and supporting arches
Four pillars support the dome and form four broad arches. Their coffers depict the sixteen major prophets. Inside the dome, images of the Apocalypse accompany the four Evangelists, each shown with a traditional symbol: John with an eagle, Matthew with an angel, Luke with an ox, and Mark with a lion. Busts of eight bishops associated with the glorification of the Virgin complete the decoration: Pius V, Germanus of Paris, Peter Damian, Ildephonsus, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Anselm of Canterbury, Francis de Sales, and Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori.
