Santa Chiara, Naples

Step through the gate and the noise of the old town drops away behind you. Out on the street, scooters push through narrow lanes and vendors call to each other. In here, the air feels cooler. The stone is pale and plain, the church front is tall and simple, and your footsteps sound louder than they should. This is the Basilica of Santa Chiara, one of the great medieval churches of Naples.

You are standing at the edge of Spaccanapoli, the long, straight street that cuts through the historic centre like a line drawn with a ruler. The name means, roughly, the street that splits Naples. Its path follows a road laid out by the ancient Greeks who founded the city. Just behind you is Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, with its stone column and the church of Gesù Nuovo, whose facade is covered in sharp, diamond-shaped blocks. The two churches face each other, and they could hardly look more different.

Santa Chiara belongs to the early fourteenth century. It was commissioned by King Robert of Anjou, often called Robert the Wise, and his queen, Sancia of Majorca. The Anjou were a French royal family who ruled southern Italy at that time. Work began around 1310, and the church was consecrated in 1340. It is dedicated to Saint Clare of Assisi, the companion of Saint Francis, who founded the order of nuns known as the Poor Clares.

Here is the first surprise. This was never just a church. Robert and Sancia created a double monastery — one community of Poor Clare nuns and one community of Franciscan friars, side by side, sharing the same great church. Queen Sancia was deeply devoted to the Franciscan ideal of poverty. It is a strange contrast. A royal couple spent a fortune to honour an order that believed in owning almost nothing.

Look at the building itself. The style is Gothic, the architecture of medieval Europe with tall walls and pointed forms. But this is a restrained, southern kind of Gothic. There are no forests of spires, no crowd of carved saints. The facade is mostly flat, with a rose window and a pointed porch. Inside, the nave is a single, enormous hall without side aisles. Chapels open along both walls. The effect is space, light, and silence.

Now the second surprise. What you see inside is, in a real sense, a reconstruction. In the eighteenth century, the interior was completely redecorated in the Baroque style — gold, marble, painted ceilings, swirling stucco. For two centuries, visitors saw a glittering hall that looked nothing like the medieval church. Then came the Second World War.

On 4 August 1943, during an Allied bombing raid on Naples, incendiary bombs hit Santa Chiara. The fire burned for many hours, and accounts say it lasted about two days. The Baroque decoration, the paintings, and much of the furniture were lost. When the smoke cleared, only the scorched shell of the walls was left standing. For the people of Naples, the loss of this church became a symbol of the whole city's suffering.

After the war, the restorers made a bold decision. Instead of rebuilding the Baroque interior, they returned the church to its original Gothic form. The basilica reopened in 1953. So the bare walls around you are both very old and quite recent. A popular Neapolitan song from 1945, "Munasterio 'e Santa Chiara", captured the mood of those years. In it, a man away from home is afraid to come back and find his city changed. Many Neapolitans still know it by heart.

Walk towards the high altar. Behind it stands the tomb of King Robert of Anjou, the founder. It was made by the Florentine sculptors Giovanni and Pacio Bertini, and it was once one of the grandest royal monuments in medieval Europe. The fire of 1943 damaged it badly. Look closely and you can still see the layers: the king lying in death, and above him the king seated in majesty. Several other members of the Anjou family rest nearby, and later royals were buried here too, including members of the Bourbon dynasty who ruled Naples many centuries afterwards.

Outside the church stands the bell tower, which is separate from the main building. Its lower part is medieval, and the upper levels were added later. Many visitors walk right past it without looking up. Take a moment. The heavy stone base shows how it was built to last, and the change of style higher up shows how many generations worked on this place.

Now for the part most people come for — the cloister of the Poor Clares. This was the private garden of the nuns. In the 1740s, it was redesigned under the architect Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, and covered in hand-painted majolica tiles. Majolica is glazed, painted ceramic. The octagonal pillars along the walkways are wrapped in yellow and green vines. The long benches between them show scenes of country life, hunting, the sea, and ordinary people at work. For women who rarely left the convent, these tiles showed the outside world.

Take your time in the cloister. Sit on the edge of a bench and look at the details — a cart, a boat, a little dog, a peasant with a basket. The walls around the garden carry painted frescoes, now faded. Citrus trees grow among the paths, and on a warm day the courtyard fills with green light. Nearby, the museum holds a Roman bath complex discovered beneath the convent, and a traditional Neapolitan nativity scene filled with tiny, detailed figures. The nativity scene, called a presepe, is a craft the city still loves.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment wherever you are. Notice the contrast between the bare stone of the church and the bright colour of the tiles. Two very different centuries sit here together, and the war sits between them. When you step back out onto Spaccanapoli, the noise will return all at once. Listen for it. Then look back once at the plain grey facade, the church that burned and was rebuilt in its oldest form.