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Ponte della Maddalena, Naples

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Guglielmo Pepe on the Ponte della Maddalena in Naples
Guglielmo Pepe on the Ponte della Maddalena in Naples

The Ponte della Maddalena was a bridge on the south east of Naples, Italy, spanning over what was once the River Sebeto, and now reflected by the path of the Via Marinella. For centuries it was one of the entry points into Naples from the South, but was obliterated during the late 19th-century urban renewal of the city. Prior to Norman times, the bridge was known as pons padulis. Then it was named Guizzardo bridge, for a bridge built by Robert Guiscard, Duke of Puglia, when he lay siege to the city in 1078. It stood near the shoreline to the east of the city where the Via Marinella crossed the River Sebeto (within the present-day Vittorio Emanuele III docks and Piazza Mercato). The bridge was rebuilt in 1555 under the Viceroy Don Bernardino di Mendoza, to span the marsh ground where the Sebeto river arose during the rainy season. The bridge was rebuilt again in 1747 under Charles III and once again in the second half of the 19th century. No longer in existence, it was an established and popular vantage point for topographical artists.The bridge was an excellent point at which to deny entry to invading forces into the city. The most famous of these was the stand in 1799 of the forces of the short-lived Neapolitan republic against the returning royalist Bourbon army. The Miracle of the Magdalene bridge recalls an incident in December 1631, when the cardinal of Naples, led a procession dedicated to San Gennaro to the bridge to plead for the end to an eruption of Vesuvius. The ebbing of the eruption was interpreted as a miraculous intercession. A shrine was erected in 1777 with San Gennaro with his arms pacifying the volcano.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Ponte della Maddalena, Naples (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Ponte della Maddalena, Naples
Via Ponte della Maddalena, Naples Vicaria

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.84529 ° E 14.27793 °
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Address

Via Ponte della Maddalena

Via Ponte della Maddalena
80142 Naples, Vicaria
Campania, Italy
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Guglielmo Pepe on the Ponte della Maddalena in Naples
Guglielmo Pepe on the Ponte della Maddalena in Naples
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Santa Maria del Carmine, Naples
Santa Maria del Carmine, Naples

Santa Maria del Carmine (Our Lady of Mount Carmel) is a church in Naples, Italy. It is at one end of Piazza Mercato (Market Square), the centre of civic life in Naples for many centuries until it was cut off from the rest of the city by urban renewal in 1900. The church was founded in the 13th century by Carmelite friars driven from the Holy Land in the Crusades, presumably arriving in the Bay of Naples aboard Amalfitan ships. Some sources, however, place the original refugees from Mount Carmel as early as the eighth century. The church is still in use and the 75–metre bell tower is visible from a distance even amidst taller modern buildings. The square adjacent to the church was the site in 1268 of the execution of Conradin, the last Hohenstaufen heir to the throne of the kingdom of Naples, at the hands of Charles I of Anjou, thus beginning the Angevin reign of the kingdom. Conrad's mother, Elisabeth of Bavaria, founded the church for the good of the souls of her young son and his companion, Frederick of Baden as well as a resting place for their remains, where they remain today. A statue was erected to Conrad's memory, commissioned by then crown-prince, Maximilian II of Bavaria, designed by the Neoclassic sculptor Thorvaldsen, and completed by his pupil Schopf in 1847. In 1647 the square was the site of battles between rebels and royal troops during Masaniello's revolt, and later, in 1799, it was the scene of the mass execution of leaders of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. The area – including parts of the church premises – was heavily bombed in World War II and still shows the scars of the devastation. The old monastic grounds adjacent to the church now serve as a shelter for the needy and homeless. The church is home to two renowned religious relics: one, the painting of the "Brown Madonna" (Italian: Madonna Bruna), is said to have been brought by the original Carmelites; the second is a figure of the Crucifixion in which the crown of thorns is missing. According to legend, the crown fell off as Christ's head moved when the building was struck by a cannonball in 1439 during the Aragonese siege.