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Temple of St Francis in Gaeta: 800 years of history in Gothic and Neo-Gothic style on Mount Orlando
In 1222, Francis of Assisi stayed in Gaeta and founded a small convent on the slopes of Mount Orlando. The Franciscan historian Luke Wadding recorded this centuries later with a pithy phrase: "Valde locum hunc dilexit Franciscus" (Francis loved this place greatly). In 1283, Charles II of Anjou, who was very much attached to the Franciscans, funded the construction of a proper church. However, what we see today is almost entirely the result of work begun in 1854, following decades of neglect after the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders. It was Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies who entrusted the restoration to military architect Giacomo Guarinelli.
The work of Guarinelli
Nothing was demolished. Guarinelli took the original 14th-century Gothic structure and covered it, inside and out, with a Neo-Gothic decoration inspired by the French school. The result is a church that hides the structure built six centuries earlier beneath its 19th-century stucco work.
The exterior of the church
A monumental staircase leads to the façade, at the center of which stands the statue of Religion by Luigi Persico, depicted as Christ with the cross. On either side of the portal, the statues of Charles II of Anjou and Ferdinand II of Bourbon, accompanied by Latin epigraphs, commemorate their roles in the construction and restoration of the building. Higher up, on the cornice, a row of saints (Bernard, Ambrose, Francis, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas) completes the façade’s adornments.
