by Paolo Jorio

The Treasure, in cultural and artistic terms, has an inestimable value, representing a route through the craft, the taste, the artists over seven centuries of history. It belongs to the Neapolitans, because the works were donated to a son of theirs or rather, to millions of children named Gennaro.

The masterpieces that make up the Treasure of San Gennaro document the extraordinary ability of Neapolitan sculptors and silversmiths who have been able to combine technical knowledge and creativity. Chalices, pyxes, baskets, candlesticks, plates, ostensories with the busts and statues of the Patron Saints and the other items exposed, are the result of a team work by highly qualified masters in their field: sculptors, chasers, welders, mitters collection, as the assemblers of that time were called, have made masterpieces of rare beauty.

Invention, popular devotion, religiosity, spectacle: all this and more includes the exhibition of the Museum of the Treasure of San Gennaro, in a path of masterpieces along seven centuries that today you can see intact thanks to the meritorious work of the Deputation. Many of the exhibits, in fact, have been saved and preserved by the continued sacks and expropriations of that time, managing to come down to us intact, witnesses of an exemplary history of fine craftsmanship that started from the Fourteenth century.