Complesso Monumentale di Santa Chiara
Gothic monastery cloister of hand-painted majolica tiles, once home to a cloistered order of nuns.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Complesso Monumentale di Santa Chiara in Naples starts on a Carnival night sometime in the sixteen hundreds, when the cloistered Poor Clares behind these barred windows turned their convent into a secret ballroom, smuggling in costumes and masked guests. You'll hear how an archival document exposed the ruse, and how the hand-painted majolica tiles added to the cloister in 1742, with their lemons, wisteria and everyday scenes, reflected the era's belief that bright color could ward off the evil eye. Craftsmen who came to mend a hinge or a tile served as go-betweens, tucking jewelry and forbidden food among their tools.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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