Church of Sant'Angelo and Piazzetta Nilo in Naples

A visit to the small yet beautiful Church of Sant'Angelo al Nilo in Naples allows you to read the signs of three centuries of art history that span from the Renaissance to the late Baroque, and discover how Naples and Egypt were once very closely connected.

The Church of Sant'Angelo al Nilo occupies the space where merchants from Alexandria, Egypt settled with homes and shops, and decided to erect a monument that would commemorate their homeland.

The church was built in the heart of the Greco-Roman Naples between the late 1300s and early 1400s, at the behest of Rinaldo Brancaccio, a nobleman elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1384, with a first chapel dedicated to Saints Angelo and Marco, near a hospital for the poor and the family palace.

The founder's wonderful funeral monument remains, sculpted in Pisa in 1427-28 by the great Tuscan artists, including Donatello and Michelozzo, commissioned from Florence to Naples. The tomb of Cardinal Rinaldo Brancaccio, initially placed along one of the walls of the church's original nave, is rightly considered one of the first and most significant testimonies of the formal style of the Renaissance.

The Church of Sant'Angelo al Nilo is distinguished by its baldachin layout in evident late Gothic style, which is simultaneously adorned with reliefs and sculptures dating from more modern times, such as the panel representing the Assumption of the Virgin, attributed by critics to Donatello.

The only testament to the ancient painted embellishment of the chapel is represented by the fresco in the lunette of the portal depicting the Madonna on the throne with saints Michael and Andrew and the donor, by Perinetto da Benevento, currently housed in the sacristy where notable Renaissance cabinets decorated with inlays can also be appreciated.

There remain other extraordinary examples of 15th-century sculptural ornaments such as the entrance portal, the statue of Saint Michael the Archangel, and the funeral monument dedicated to Pietro Brancaccio executed by Jacopo della Pila in 1483. In particular, the statue of Saint Michael the Archangel has recently undergone meticulous restoration that has highlighted its elegant lines hidden by a poor intervention in 1845 and by subsequent deposits of debris due to environmental pollution.

Particular attention is deserved by the main altar, dominated by a masterpiece of late 17th-century Neapolitan carving: the bust depicting the Sorrowful Virgin in polychrome wood, enhanced by the panel with Saint Michael the Archangel, a masterpiece from 1573 attributed to Marco Pino from Siena.

From the church, it is easy to access the cloister-court that leads to the ancient Palazzo Brancaccio, where in 1690 the first public library in Naples was inaugurated, thanks to the donation of an important collection of volumes by Francesco Brancaccio.

The statue of the Nile God located in the square of the same name in front of the church has the appearance of an old, bearded, and semi-nude man lying on a rock, with a cornucopia on the right and his feet resting on the head of a crocodile.

The statue was commissioned in the heart of Naples' Decumani by Egyptian merchants during the time of the Roman Empire to pay homage to the Nile River, which they revered as a God. It is said that the sculpture represents the 'Body of Naples,' indicating the exact center of the city and harboring all its secrets.

In the Middle Ages, for unknown reasons, the Nile God remained headless until the 17th century, when the city administration arranged for another to be made. Subsequently, the statue mysteriously disappeared from its classic position, with no one knowing its new location until it reappeared in 1476, when the nuns of the Donnaromita monastery ceded their old dwelling to make way for the Seggio del Nido.

Since then, the statue has not undergone any more mysterious relocations; it always lies there in the Piazzetta Nilo, but it is always surrounded by an intriguing charm because, according to an ancient legend, beneath the Nile God lies a supposed treasure, and the gaze of the God is said to be directed towards the possible hiding place.

The church and Piazzetta Nilo are located in the heart of the Decumani, along the route that leads from Piazza del Gesù to Piazza San Domenico Maggiore and Via dei Presepi di San Gregorio Armeno. The nearest metro station on Line 1 is Dante.