GOTHIC TOMBS

Santa Chiara was the favored burial site of the Angevin sovereigns of Naples, and is famous for the Gothic tombs with baldachins that are preserved there and are partly intact. The most spectacular is without a doubt that of Robert of Anjou, which forms a scenic background to the church behind the main altar; it was made by Tuscan artists in the mid-1300s and is one of the largest complexes of Gothic funerary sculpture in Italy.

To its sides you can admire other tombs from the same period, also by Tuscan masters. To the left you can see the tomb of Maria di Durazzo, and to the right those of Carlo di Calabria and Maria di Valois, which have few precedents. A parade of unbelievably beautiful 14th-century sculpture!

You'll find the remains of other fourteenth-century tombs in the chapels on the right side, while the second to last on the left has a beautiful carved sarcophagus from the third century BC.