The area of Piazza San Domenico in Naples, crossed by the walls of the Greek city of the 4th century BC, was radically transformed at the behest of Alfonso I of Aragon the Magnanimous (1442-1458): another entrance was added to the medieval basilica of San Domenico Maggiore, on the opposite side of the facade angevin; in fact, the polygonal apse of the church and the staircase of the 10th century chapel of Sant’Arcangelo a Morfisa overlook the square, later incorporated into San Domenico Maggiore.

The quadrilateral of the square closes with the fifteenth-century Palazzo Petrucci (the first owner Antonello Petrucci was Secretary of Ferrando d’Aragona), the Palazzo Casacalenda built in the eighteenth century, the Palazzo Corigliano, built at the beginning of the sixteenth century, which still preserves the refined Cabinet room with mirrors and rococo carvings; alongside it is the Palazzo di Sangro, built in the first half of the 16th century.

LA GUGLIA DI SAN DOMENICO A NAPOLI

In the center of the square, the spire of San Domenico. Commissioned by the Neapolitans after the plague of 1656, a decorative undertaking by several architects: designed by Francesco Antonio Picchiatti, it was finished much later by Cosimo Fanzago and Domenico Antonio Vaccaro (1737); sculptural decorative elements such as festoons, coats of arms and mermaids, emblems of the city, rest on the pyramidal shape.