Galleria di Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano

Banking group Intesa Sanpaolo has put its profits to good use, restoring the exquisite 17th-century Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano it occupies and opening a small art gallery on its piano nobile (main floor). While the 19th-century stucco detailing and frescoes are delightful, the gallery’s pièce de résistance is Caravaggio’s final masterpiece, The Martyrdom of St Ursula (1610). Completed a few weeks before the artist’s lonely death, it depicts the brutal scene of a vengeful king of the Huns piercing the heart of his unwilling virgin bride-to-be, Ursula. Positioned behind the dying martyr is a haunted Caravaggio, an eerie premonition of his own impending death. The tumultuous history of both the artist and the painting are documented in the free audioguide, as well as in two documentaries (with English subtitles) shown in the Sala Pompeiana. Other works of note include a fascinating pictorial map of 17th-century Naples by Alessandro Baratta and 18th- and 19th-century landscape paintings by Anton Smink Pitloo and Gaspar van Wittel; the latter is the father of architect Luigi Vanvitelli.