Guglia dell'Immacolata
Baroque marble spire crowned by a copper Virgin, scaled by firefighters each December in a flower-laying ritual.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Guglia dell'Immacolata in Naples centers on a December ritual: a Neapolitan firefighter climbing twenty-two meters up this marble spire, past four carved Jesuit saints, to lay a crown of flowers in the hand of the copper Virgin at the top. It also traces how the spire came to stand here at all, after a bronze statue of King Philip the Fifth on this spot was pulled down by Austrian troops within five years, prompting the Jesuits to raise money door to door for a replacement. You'll hear about the sculptors who carved it. Look up before the crowds gather to see just how high that climb really is.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Basilica Santuario di Maria Santissima del Carmine Maggiore
Baroque basilica with a soaring bell tower crowned in glazed green and yellow majolica tile.
Duomo di Napoli
Gothic cathedral built over a saint's bones, where a martyr's dried blood is watched three times a year for a sign.
Charterhouse & Museum of San Martino
Baroque monastery church sheathed floor to ceiling in inlaid marble shipped from four countries.
Chiesa di Santa Maria di Piedigrotta
Marian sanctuary at a grotto's foot, birthplace of a bridal shoe ritual and Naples' oldest folk festival.
Church of the New Jesus
Diamond-cut volcanic stone facade of a former Renaissance palace, its dome twice felled by earthquake.
Piazza del Plebiscito
Grand semicircular square framed by a colonnaded basilica and twin bronze equestrian statues.