palazzos step back to reveal a sun-drenched plaza.
The San Domenico column, Naples, shown in May 2019.
The spire of San Domenico a stone obelisk topped with a statue of the saint is one of Europe’s “plague columns.” Such monuments were erected after devastating epidemics in the 17th century to memorialize the religious figures believed to have interceded to stop the spread of disease.
Vienna still has the most famous one, though others survive. Of the three columns standing in Naples, only the spire of San Domenico was erected to actually commemorate a plague. As art historian Maria Ann Conelli points out, the column shares its form with a type of temporary funeral monument erected to display the coffin of a prominent citizen in baroque-era Italy.