Gesù Nuovo

In front of you is a church with a palace facade, and that is exactly what it once was. In 1470 the architect Novello da San Lucano built the residence of Roberto Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, here. The Sanseverino fell from grace: their property was confiscated, and in 1584 the Jesuits bought the palace to turn it into a church. It was consecrated in 1601.

1The diamond points

The Jesuits kept the original facade, made of piperno, a grey volcanic stone. If you step closer, you will see that many ashlars carry small carved marks. The most widely accepted explanation is a simple one: they were stonemasons' signs identifying the work of each team.

One tradition holds that the stones were meant to attract good energies, but that laying them the wrong way reversed the effect: hence the misfortunes the building suffered, including the fall of its first dome.

2A score in the stone?

In 2010 the art historian Vincenzo De Pasquale and two Hungarian musicologists put forward a surprising reading: the marks would be Aramaic letters which, read from right to left and bottom to top, form a score for plucked string instruments, about 45 minutes long, which they called «Enigma». Other scholars reject it and compare the marks to laboratory symbols. It is a hypothesis, not a fact.

3What to look for

• The marks on the ashlars at hand height.
• The cartouche on the portal, dated 1597, when the church opened for worship.
• The Immacolata spire in the centre of the square.