3 Best Sights in Piazza Garibaldi and Nearby, Naples

With museum-worthy paintings and sculptures, this church is a must-see. The Formiello in the name refers to the formali, the nearby underground aqueduct, which, according to history, the Aragonese also used to capture the town. The church and its dark piperno stone was designed for the Dominicans by the Tuscan architect Romolo Balsimelli, a student of Brunelleschi.

The side chapels are as interesting for their relics as they are for their art. In the Orsini chapel are the elaborately framed remains of Vincent Martyr and other Dominican saints, while the fourth chapel displays some 20 martyrs' skulls that were brought to Naples by King Alfonso in 1490 after the 1480 Ottoman sack of Otranto, during which 813 Christians were executed for refusing to renounce their faith. This event is depicted in the rather surrealistic altar painting of the beheading of Antonio Primaldo, whose decapitated body, through the strength of faith, stands upright to confound his Ottoman executioner.

In the fifth chapel, a cycle of paintings by Giacomo del Po shows the life and afterlife of St. Catherine, while in the vault Luigi Garzi depicts the same saint in glory. Up in the faded dome, painted by Paolo di Mattei, Catherine and the Madonna implore the Trinity to watch over the city.

The history of this engaging complex of Renaissance architecture and sculpture begins in 1339, when the Neapolitan nobleman Gualtiero Galeota donated a few houses and a vegetable garden to the Augustinian monks who ministered to the poor neighborhood nearby. The church’s name is a nod to its location near the city’s medieval trash dump, where refuse was burned and, hence, carbonized.

Because San Giovanni is off the path of tour groups, you can absorb its ordered beauty in relative peace. The drama begins with an elliptical, double-run, piperno-stone staircase, which was modeled after a 1707 design by Ferdinando Sanfelice and which is similar to such impressive stairways as the Spanish Steps in Rome. Cross the courtyard to the left of the main entrance and enter the rectangular nave. The first thing you see is the chapel monument to the Miroballo family, which was finished by Tommaso Malvito and his workshop in 1519 for the Marchese Braciglian. Magnificent statues in a semicircular arch set the tone for this repository of first-class Renaissance sculpture.

Dominating the main altar, which has been stripped of its 18th-century Baroque elements, is the 59-foot-tall funerary monument to King Ladislaus and Joan II, finished by Marco and Andrea da Firenze in 1428. A gate underneath it leads to the Ser Caracciolo del Sole chapel, with its rare and beautiful original majolica pavement. The oldest produced in Italy, from a workshop in Campania, it shows the influence of Arab motifs and glazing technique.

The dating of the circular Caracciolo di Vico chapel, to the left of the altar, is the subject of debate. Usually given as 1517, with the sculptural decor complete by 1557, the design (often attributed to Tommaso Malvito) may go back to 1499 and thus precede the much more famous Tempietto in Rome, by Bramante, which it so resembles. Here, impressive 16th-century elements include a splendidly restored Crucifixion by Giorgio Vasari, colorful frescoes by an anonymous master, and an intriguing sculpture of a knight taking a nap in his armor.

This church contains an altar where Saint Peter supposedly preached while in Naples. Enter by the side door on Corso Umberto I, and you'll find the altar in the vestibule at the back, along with a 16th-century fresco depicting the preaching scene. The church also houses two canvases by Luca Giordano. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons and Sunday mornings, you can descend into the labyrinthine crypt, where the first Christian community in Europe was founded and the first six saints of Naples are buried.