Basilica di Santa Maria della Sanità

This guide to the Basilica di Santa Maria della Sanita in Naples follows two builders three centuries apart. In 1602 the Dominican friar Fra Nuvolo raised the church over an older burial ground and capped it with a dome sheathed in yellow and green glazed tile, finished around 1613 and still visible above the rooftops of the Rione Sanita. Centuries later, after a new road cut the neighborhood off and buried it in poverty, a cooperative called La Paranza set out in 2006 to put local hands back to work, training unemployed young people as guides and restorers. Head down the staircase behind the altar into the catacombs of San Gaudioso to see where that work continues.