Cloister of Santa Chiara

Cloister of Santa Chiara tickets: which one to buy

The church is free; the ticket is for the majolica cloister, the archaeological area and the small museum, and it is inexpensive. That cloister is the reason to come and the reason the complex is on every Naples itinerary. Guided group tours run several times a day for a small supplement and are useful because the tiled scenes are full of eighteenth-century Neapolitan detail that repays pointing out. Walking tours of Spaccanapoli include the cloister and cost several times the entry.

The complex is on Via Benedetto Croce, the main street of the old centre, directly opposite the Gesu Nuovo church with its diamond-pointed facade, so there is no transport cost and no reason to book. A small cafe operates in the entrance courtyard. Queues form only when a cruise group arrives. The ticket also admits you to the nuns' choir behind the high altar, reached by a separate staircase and usually empty.

Visiting Cloister of Santa Chiara: what to see

Robert of Anjou and his wife Sancha of Majorca built Santa Chiara between 1313 and 1340 as a double monastery for Franciscan friars and Poor Clares, with a vast rectangular Gothic church 110 metres long and no aisles, so that the nuns could hear mass from galleries above. Baroque decoration was added in the eighteenth century and burned away in the Allied bombing of August 1943, after which the church was restored to its bare Gothic state, a decision that art historians still argue about. The cloister survived.

In 1739 Domenico Antonio Vaccaro covered its pillars and benches with more than seventy majolica tiles by Donato and Giuseppe Massa, painted in yellow and blue with vines, lemons, country scenes, hunts and picnics, so that a monastic garden became something closer to a pleasure park. The archaeological area below shows a Roman bath complex found during postwar rebuilding. Robert of Anjou's tomb behind the altar is the largest funerary monument in medieval Italy, carved in 1343 and badly damaged in the fire that followed the bombing.

Cloister of Santa Chiara opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from mid-morning to early evening with a shorter Sunday schedule, and last entry half an hour before closing; the church keeps its own hours and closes at midday. The cloister is open to the sky, so rain is a real factor and the tiles are at their best in bright sun, when the yellows carry. Naples is hot in July and August and the cloister has patches of shade under the pergolas.

The old centre is busiest in the middle of the day. Dress code applies to the church rather than the cloister. Photography without flash is allowed. Allow an hour. Gesu Nuovo across the street is free, and the Sansevero chapel with the Veiled Christ is three minutes away and needs a booked slot. Christmas is the season for the presepe workshops on nearby Via San Gregorio Armeno, which is five minutes away and impassable in December.