Welcome to the site Napoliforme

Pozzuoli's economic importance in the Augustan age encouraged the construction and restoration of public and religious buildings. The marble reconstruction of the Capitolium (a temple dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, a sign of the city's Roman status), known as the Temple of Augustus, which was originally made of tufa, dates from this period. Over time, bradyseism and economic difficulties, the rise of Christianity, the crisis of the Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions violently changed city life. The invasion of the Visigoths in 410 A.D. led to the abandonment of entire neighbourhoods: the built-up area shrank within the fortified fortress of the Rione Terra, the highest point of the acropolis, around the Roman temple 'reused' by the new Christian cult (late 5th-early 6th century A.D.). The Temple of Augustus was thus incorporated into the Cathedral dedicated to St Proculus, the city's patron saint and St Gennaro's companion in his martyrdom (303 AD). Sealed in the Christian building, the temple remained intact for centuries and recognisable to scholars, until the 17th-century renovation of the church, when Bishop Martín de León y Cárdenas, in 1631-32, gave the Cathedral a 'modern' appearance, breaking through the rear wall to extend the nave, lowering the floor level and covering the surviving structures with Baroque superstructures that concealed the pagan temple. The paintings adorning the church are by famous artists and illustrate episodes linked to the Christian history of Pozzuoli, such as The Landing of St Paul in Pozzuoli by Giovanni Lanfranco or St Gennaro in the Amphitheatre and Saints Proculus and Nicea by Artemisia Gentileschi. In the 18th century, the church continued to be enriched with polychrome marble, frescoes and precious objects, including the silver bust-reliquary of St Proculus (1731).