La cupola dimenticata di fine Quattrocento sull’abside del duomo di Napoli

The study brings back to light a late 15th Century dome whose existence had been forgotten. The dome was built in 1484 at a key point of the city's main church: on the apse of the Angevin-founded cathedral. It was the last act of repairs to the cathedral from the damage of the violent earthquake in 1456, and its construction planned the hypogeal chapel to build underneath the apse tribune in order to house the bones of the patron saint Gennaro, the so-called Succorpo. The dome was usually in a precarious condition during its lifetime, requiring constant repairs and rearrangements, until it was finally replaced with a wooden one in 1741. The multi-layered history of the cathedral and the numerous events of repairs and transformations make it difficult to recognise the intermediate phases and thus also the existence of the late 15th Century dome. By interweaving data, descriptions and historical iconography with direct analysis of the structures of the context, the study leads to proof of its existence and to recognise its configuration, also with the support of architectural drawing to elaborate the existing surveys on the basis of collected data and elements. Dome configuration and its context explain the precariousness of the structure and its constitutive vices and, at the same time, it recounts problems and developments in the masonry domes construction in Neapolitan area, acting as a link between the Gran Sala dome in Castel Nuovo and the domes of the Early 16th Century.