Santa Maria del Carmine (Naples)

Santa Maria del Carmine is a church in Naples, Italy. It is at one end of Piazza Mercato (Market Square), the center of civic life in Naples for many centuries until it was cut off from the rest of the city by urban renewal in 1900. The church was founded in the 12th century by Carmelite monks driven from the Holy Land in the Crusades presumably arriving in the Bay of Naples aboard Amalfitan ships. Some sources, however, place the original refugees from Mount Carmel as early as the eighth century. The church is still in use and the 75–meter bell tower is quite visible from a distance even amidst taller modern buildings.

The square adjacent to the church was the site in 1268 of the execution of Conradin, the last Hohenstaufen pretender to the throne of the kingdom of Naple, at the hands of Charles I of Anjou, thus beginning the Angevin reign of the kingdom. In 1647 the square was also the site of battles between rebels and royal troops during Masaniello's revolt, and in 1799 the scene of the mass execution of leaders of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. The area – including parts of the church premises – was heavily bombed in World War II and still shows the scars of the devastation. The old monastic grounds adjacent to the church now serve as a shelter for the needy and homeless. The church is home to two renowned religious relics: one, the painting of the "Brown Madonna," is said to have been brought by the original Carmelites; the second is a figure of the Crucifixion in which the crown of thorns is missing. According to the legend, the crown fell as Christ's head moved when the building was struck by a cannon ball in 1439.