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The Monastery of Santa Maria di Regina Coeli

The church, which overlooks largo Regina Coeli, is an example of the architecture of the 16th century. It was built on request of the Canonesses Lateranensi, nuns of the rule of St Augustine.

The interior has a single nave without a transept, and there are five chapels on the right and four on the left with the access to the sacristy in place of the fifth chapel. The wooden roof-trussed ceiling of the nave is covered by another wooden beam-crossed gilded and carved ceiling carried out in 1659 and designed by Pietro di Martino. In the church there are three paintings on canvas by Massimo Stanzione, a Neapolitan exponent of Classicism; these were painted between 1640 and 1647 and represent the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Crowning of the Virgin Mary.

Between the large windows of the nave hang paintings of Augustinian saints by Domenico Gargiulo known as Micco Spadaro and Luca Giordano. The wall coating work, consisting of marble panels placed side by side, was completed in 1789 under the direction of the architect Carletti. In the second and fourth left-hand chapel hang paintings by Luca Giordano (1680 - 1684). The third chapel is dedicated to Santa Giovanna Antida Thouret, founder of the order of the Sisters of Charity who occupied the monastery from 1810 onwards.
A marble urn contains the moral remains of the saint.

The apse contains the main altar richly inlaid in polychrome marble by Giovanni Mozzetti and Francesco Valentino. On the wall behind the altar hang paintings by Ferdinando Castiglia, while two large canvases by Pietro Bardellino and dated 1786 hang on the side walls. Below these paintings are two marble reliefs by Antonio Belliazzi designed by Giuseppe Sammartino. On the opposite wall is an important canvas by Antonio de Dominici showing the Resurrection of Lazarus.

The Monastery was built at the beginning of the 17th century on a design by the architect A. Picchiati. At the entrance way there is an interesting parlour of the ancient convent frescoed at the end of the 18th century, known today as the imperial salon.