Cloister of St. Gregorio Armeno

Historic Notes
The St. Gregorio Armeno Monastery is situated perhaps in the most ancient and noble part of Naples, where was the forum of the Greek-Roman city, rich of vitality, monuments and culture.
In the interior of the cloister we can see many Roman capitals, probably from the Cerere's Temple and many mortars in white marble. 
The cloister, in his present form, dates back to the middle of the 16th century when The Council of Trent imposed new rules to the monastic life. 
Someone says that it was founded by St. Elena during the reign of Costantino the Great; others say it was founded by Greek and Armenian sisters, that, persecuted in their country, sheltered in Italy carrying with them the St. Gregorio Armenian's corpse. 
The Monastery was agglomerate of many houses, surrounded by a wall. Every house had many rooms, a kitchen, a canteen and other comforts. Each sister had an own home.  
In 1563 when The Council of Trent finished, the seclusion  were imposed and the sisters had to live together. After one year they changed their white dresses in black.
In  1572 the architect Vincenzo Della Monica began the construction of a new monastery. 

A visit to the Monastery
We can came in the monastery trough a long and easy stair. 
On the both side we can see the frescos by Giacomo del Po.
At the end of the stairs we can admire the hall with his floor of white marble, on the both side there are some seats of piperno, opposite there is the main door in walnut with, on the both side, two little doors where there are the wheels, the only communication with the world out the cloister. 
As soon as we come in the cloister we see the marmorean group that show Christ and the Samaritan, a splendid work of Matteo Bottiglieri. Back to the statues there is a fountain.
On the right we can admire the Madonna dell'Idria Chapel, now in restoration.
Opposite to the Chapel there is the Refectory.

It visits to the monastery
You it accesses the cloister through a long and easy staircase formed by 33 steps of piperno; around two sides, just entered, the rest of a zoccolatura is seen, composed by enameled tiles, with yellow and green leaves, rather, as R. Pane says, of authentic " riggiole " del'700.
They notice to the sides the frescos of Giacomo of the Po, now enough wasted by the time and by the bad weather, except that in the superior part, where recent restaurations have ridato life to the white figures occhieggianti among columns green and thin spiral of leaves. On the left side deceptive glass door are seen with perspective foreshortenings and dogs and cats on the windowsills.
Climbing, on the right some environments are noticed, destined once, to the contact with the external world. From the first door it was accessed the " wine cellar " " eucaristica ", so said because wine backed down you for the mass and turned besides to preserve fresh, in the summer, the drinkable water. the following doors introduced to the " grilles ", that of the abbess, of the converged ones, said grille middle and of the nuns, said grille than above.
At the end of the staircase we admire the atrium, restored with refined elegance in 700; a registration on the portal remembers that the atrium of the sacred house was referred in 1762.
The floor is of white marble and piperno, to the sides there are seats of piperno with backs of marble; of forehead opens the principal door in wood of walnut-tree to whose sides are observed two small doors that cover two mouths or hollow, you dig in the wall, in which turn two great wood cylinders, covered of bronze and brass, said commonly " wheels ", only means of transmission of foods, of clothing and of every other object that entered or it went out of the religious house. Both the principal door and those side as well as the mouths of the wheels are inlay of esteemed marbles (white marble with borolé of France, yellow of Verona). it Overhangs a brief time with other paintings of Giacomo of the Po: St. Benedict among two angels and above a baluster with other perspective foreshortenings.
In an edition of the work of the they Conceal adjourned to 1792, him diffusedly speaks of the eighteenth-century restauration of the monastery and it underlines the majesty and the magnificence. The anonymous commentator so continuous: " in the internal part then of the Monastery who had had the fate to enter has described the beauty of it, the magnificence, the amenities."
Crossed the entry, it is us before to a hallway to form of L. Su the left entering, it finds a picture of the "dipintore Paul De Matthaeis", to the right, in the brief line of the L elegant sixteenth-century seats are noticed in dark stone, supported by columns and surmounted by marbles policromi. The impending walls the seats, show delicate frescos of landscapes from the slim fallen through colors.

The cloister
And now finally in the cloister: hardly him it enters, it strikes the vision of a superb marmoreal group raffigurante the meeting of Christ and the samaritana. A registration remembers that the source, "rich for pleasant game of waters, sweet show for the eyes" it was made to build from the abbess Violante Pignatelli in 1783. Another registration on the opposite side remembers that the fountain, falling for the old age, it has made to restore in 1843 from the abbess Francesca Caracciolo, "so that the sacred virgins to God didn't miss the perpetual symbol of the evangelical purity and the divine source of the alive water". Both the they Conceal that the Gallant they attribute the marmoreal group to Matteo Bottiglieri. Instead, R. Pane, also confirming the paternity of the sculptor for the figures of the Christ and the samaritana, it excludes that the Bottiglieri has also built the fountain, both for lack of documents on the subject, both because the composition of the same one reveals more an architect's work that of a sculptor.
Along the side of the corresponding portico the aisle of the church, some openings are noticed with seats grilles from which the nuns could assist to the Mass without estranging from the cloister.

Chapel of S. M. of the Idria
Continuing on the right, we admire the chapel of S. M. of the Idria that Bread defines "the richest and precious environment of the whole conventual complex". It has ancient origins of which you/they still preserve traces in the arc ogivale of the greatest altar and in the times of the chapel, while the rest goes up again to an amplification and eighteenth-century reconstruction, begun by the abbess Antonia Gonzaga and completed in 1712 by the abbess Claudia of Sangro.
What Madonna of the Idria does it mean?
The inestimable canon they Conceal it says that "S. M. of the Idria dictates so for the image of the SS. Virgo with an idria or rather vase under de' feet, kept image in sum veneration for the continuous miracles and graces that they get of it". Idria is a Greek term that points out a vase for water with two side handles. Instead Gennaro Aspreno Gallant " priest " " napolitano " in his work "sacred Guide to the city of Naples" it sustains that the wording S. M. of the Idria would be a contraction of the expression "S. Maria of the odegitria", Greek term to point out "guide of the good walk". You chapel was decorated by 18 artistic cloths, now to the restauration, work of the De Matthaeis.
Almost in the chapel it is accessed the refectory of the nuns, built in 600 and restored among 1692 and 1695: it is a long rectangle covered at times with carved stalemates and a pulpit from which it sticks out a figure in altorilievo. They notice a great deal coolness spoiled paintings and of scarce interest.
Important jobs performed in the 1644 bottom the direction of Francis Picchiatti changed the primitive sixteenth-century sketch of the cloister making it smaller; the four aiuoles were systematized that today they conclude the quadrilateral space around the fountain and it was traced the ample esedra that develops along the transversal space of the cloister. It is decorated with plasters, vases and two statues in terracotta and maids as separation between the garden and the garden as well as as backdrop to the perspective of the aiuoles. A last curiosity there is to signal: the well near the fountain, richly adorned of beaten iron. Well, the well is not a well but the disguise of a vast and I lavishes excavation squared from which the material of construction was drawn (tufo) for the sixteenth-century factory and the 600 jobs.
We lift the eyes to the beautiful dome of tiles enameled yellows and greens and to the five belvederis that allow following scenografiche views some city panorama and then let's get further in silence not to upset the hard-working peace of this monastery by now millennial that has known to conjugate the fertile one, manifold activity of the today with the silent images of the past.

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