Basilica della Santissima Annunziata Maggiore
Baroque basilica whose foundling wheel once took in abandoned infants, later fronted by its own charitable bank.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata Maggiore in Naples follows the wooden foundling wheel built into its wall, which took in abandoned infants anonymously for roughly five and a half centuries, and the bank the church founded in 1587 to pay for raising them. It traces the Banco dell'Ave Gratia Plena's operations in the courtyard behind the wheel, a cashier named Fulvio De Falco who forged credit certificates in 1652, and the basilica's later rebuilding by royal architect Luigi Vanvitelli after a 1757 fire. The wheel itself still stands inside, its wood worn smooth by hands that were never meant to be seen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Pio Monte della Misericordia
Baroque church housing a single Caravaggio altarpiece, commissioned by a still-active charity founded by seven young noblemen.
Music conservatories of Naples
Former orphanage turned royal conservatory, its archive holding centuries of Naples opera scores.
Farmacia storica degli incurabili
Baroque apothecary of gilded shelves and painted majolica jars, once mixing toxic syphilis cures.
Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano
Baroque palace turned glass-roofed bank hall, now home to Caravaggio's final painting.
Cloister of San Gregorio Armeno
Baroque convent courtyard with a dolphin fountain, once home to daughters of Naples' noble families.
Basilica di Santa Maria della Sanità
Baroque church with a majolica-tiled dome, built over ancient catacombs by a friar-architect.