3rd STAGE
From via Duomo to Castelcapuano
Across via Duomo, the main route picks up in the direction of Castelcapuano. The first prominent landmark to come into view is the spire of San Gennaro, which dominates the small square of Riario Sforza. It is one in a series of such structures erected in the city as votive monuments in times of calamity. It was designed by Fanzago and is across from the Pio Monte della Misericordia complex, erected in the 17th century by Francesco Antonio Picchiatti. The seven-arched stone portico is marked by Ionian pilasters with draped--so-called michelangiolina--festoons. From the portico there is an entrance to the church, courtyard and hospice by way of a lovely stairway restored by Mari Goffredo. The site is especially noted for its art gallery, which contains, among many other works, some by Francesco De Mura and--at the main altar--Caravaggio's Madonna of Mercy, showing the Seven Works of Mercy.

After the square of Sedil Capuano, still on the same side, stands the Santa Maria della Pace complex: the church with adjacent convent and hospital, built partially on the site of the earlier Ser Gianni Caracciolo palace, named for that powerful aristocratic favourite of queen Giovanna II of Durazzo. The marble Gothic portal with circular arches, columns and capitals with various designs, the base and entrance passageway are all the oldest parts of this 14th- century edifice that grew up around the original square courtyard closed by a portico. Lush and green from the many shrubs and the vines hanging from a lateral terrace, the courtyard is dominated by a round clock with majolic quadrants flanked by small columns joined by a broken triangular tympanum. From here, there is a covered passageway to the upper gallery of the second courtyard with its ornamental stone balustrade and which is set amid trees and flower gardens lower than the first courtyard. Immediately thereafter is the last building on via dei Tribunali, the Ricca palace from the 1500s and, since 1819, seat of the Bank of Naples, which currently houses its Historical Archives in the building. Behind the 18th-century facade by Gaetano Barba, rebuilt between 1739 and 1773, the building retains from its origins only the stone arches of the main stairway, which opens on the left past the entrance passageway. At the back of the courtyard, on the facade crowned by the clock of Gaetano Buoncore (1740), is the entrance to the chapel, the Sacro Monte oratory, built in 1663 to a design by Giuseppe Caracciolo.