Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/148

This page needs to be proofread.

140 NAPLES which are highly adorned. The chief aqueduct, which supplies them with water, is the Acqua di Carmignano. The Acqua della Bolla supplies the lower quarters of the city. The supply is, however, limited. Two artesian wells have been sunk, but without success ; and an English firm secured a concession for supplying the city with water in 1873. There are two mineral springs in the city of great celebrity. The num- ber of churches is over 300. The most impor- tant is the cathedral, which retains little of its original Gothic character excepting in the tow- ers. It was commenced at the end of the 13th century and completed at the beginning of the 14th; was injured by an earthquake in the middle of the 15th, and was rebuilt by Alfonso I. ; and has since undergone frequent restora- tions, the last in 1837. Over the great entrance are the tombs of Charles I. of Anjou, Charles Martel, and his wife Clementia of Hapsburg. It also contains the tombs of King Andrew, of Pope Innocent IV., and of other noted person- ages. Opposite to the entrance of the basilica of Santa Restituta, on the site of a temple of Apollo, and once the place of worship for the Greek ritual, but now part of the cathedral, is the cappella del Tesoro, or chapel of San Gen- naro (St. Januarius), with the two celebrated vials said to contain the blood of that saint, the liquefaction of which gives occasion for the greatest religious festivals of Naples. (See JANUARIUS, SAINT.) The "Tomb of San Gen- naro," with the sick waiting to be cured, and several other paintings and frescoes in the chapel, are by Domenichino. The tomb is un- der the high altar in the richly ornamented sub- terranean chapel called the "confessional of San Gennaro," near the kneeling statue of Car- dinal Carafa, which is said to have been exe- cuted by Michel Angelo. The church of Sant' Aniello a Capo Napoli, or Sant' Agnello Mag- giore, in the piazza Sant' Agnello, has a painting of San Carlo by Caracciolo, said to be one of the most masterly imitations of Annibale Car- racci. Beneath the richly decorated church de' Santi Apostoli, said to have been founded by Constantine on the ruins of a temple of Mer- cury, is a cemetery containing the tomb of the poet Marini. Among the other churches are Santa Chiara, with a Latin inscription over the Gothic tomb of King Robert the Wise, attrib- uted to Petrarch, designed like many other monuments by Masuccio II. ; and the church of San Lorenzo, associated with one of the stories of Boccaccio, with Petrarch, who resided for some time in the cloister attached to it, and with Alfonso I., who in the chapter house of ihis church proclaimed his natural son Ferdi- nand heir to the throne by the title of duke of Calabria. The convent and church of San Mar- tino is celebrated for the magnificence of the view from it, as well as for the beauty of its architecture. Santa Maria del Parto, in the Mergellina suburb, called by the common peo- ple il diavolo di Mergellina, derives its name from Sannazzaro's poem De Partu Virginis, and contains that poet's tomb. Beggars abound in Naples in spite of the law. There are about 60 institutions devoted to charitable purposes. The most celebrated of them is the albergo de 1 poveri or reclusorio, an immense institution, which with its dependencies accommodates more than 5,000 persons. It is over 1,000 ft. long, but was intended by its founder Charles III. to cover a still larger ground, to serve as an asylum and an educational establishment for all the poor of the kingdom. To some extent it is made to answer this purpose ; boys and girls are educated there and brought up to trades, and the boys generally enlist in the army. The greatest among the other hospitals is the santa casa degV incurabili, or hospital for incurable diseases, but open to the sick of all descriptions ; it is in high repute as a medical school, and ac- commodates about 2,000 patients. The hospital dell' Annunziata is chiefly intended for the re- ception of foundlings. There are annually about 2,000 foundlings out of 15,000 births, and they are better cared for in Naples than in other parts of Italy. The new hospital di Gesu Maria is the great clinical school attached to the uni- versity. The latter in 1873 contained 74 pro- fessorships and 1,500 students, and has a library of about 25,000 volumes. The Chinese college, founded by Father Ripa, a missionary in China, is intended for the training of young Chinese, who, after having completed their education, are employed as missionaries in their native country. The college of music, in which Bel- lini was educated, enjoys a high reputation, and has had for its directors Zingarelli and Merca- dante. It gives free instruction to 100 pupils, and admits others at a small remuneration. The national school of medicine and surgery is at- tended by upward of 120 students, contains a pathological museum, and communicates by a subterranean passage with the practical medi- cal school at the hospital for incurables. The public primary schools are still in a very un- satisfactory condition, numbering in 1872 only about 15,000 pupils. The societd reale com- prises academies of science, of archaeology, and of the fine arts, and the two former publish their transactions. The observatory of Naples, situated on the Capodimonte hill, about 500 ft. above the sea, is an elegant building, com- pleted in 1820, after the plans of Piazzi, un- der whose direction it achieved great celeb- rity. The botanic garden was completed in 1818, and is remarkable for its collection of trees. The most notable new institution is the zoological garden, established in 1873, with one of the finest aquariums in the world. Na- ples possesses five public libraries: the Na- zionale, of 200,000 volumes and 5,000 manu- scripts; the Brancacciana, of 75,000 volumes; the university library; the Girolomini; and the biblioteca del municipio. The glory of Naples, however, is the museum, situated in a building originally intended for cavalry bar- racks, afterward remodelled from the designs of Fontana for the use of the university, and