Cathedral of Santa Maria degli Angeli, San Matteo and San Gregorio VII

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The Salerno Cathedral

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The Salerno Cathedral



The Salerno Cathedral

The Metropolitan Primatial Cathedral of St. Mary of the Angels, St. Matthew and St. Gregory VII, more commonly known as the Cathedral of Salerno, is undoubtedly the most representative place of worship in the city of Campania, standing imposingly in the heart of its historical centre.

Its current structure is the result of Romanesque, Arab-Norman, Byzantine and Baroque contaminations that make it decidedly interesting from an architectural as well as a religious point of view.

Salerno Cathedral between history and legends

The current appearance of Salerno Cathedral corresponds for the most part to the post-earthquake Baroque renovation of 1688, but to go back to the beginnings of its construction, we have to go back more than six centuries. The basilica was commissioned by Robert Guiscard after the Norman conquest in 1076 and was built in just five years between 1080 and 1085. In fact, it was already consecrated in June 1084 by Pope Gregory VII, who had come to the city in exile to escape Emperor Henry IV, with whom he came into conflict over his opposition to episcopal investiture.

The pope’s relics are still preserved in the right aisle of the cathedral under the mosaic of St. Matthew inside the Crusaders’ Chapel. On the casket can be read an inscription in Latin that translated reads: ‘I have loved justice and hated iniquity: for this I die in exile’.

Today, the cathedral has a ground plan divided into a longitudinal body with three naves and a transept. It has an apse for each nave and a magnificent quadriporticus decorated with arches characterised by the presence of a portico supported by 28 columns with raised round arches. In the inner perimeter of the Romanesque quadriporticus (one of the very few Italian examples), several well-preserved Roman sarcophagi alternate under the vaults of the arches, while at its centre is an ancient baptismal font that replaced the monolithic fountain in Egyptian granite brought to Naples in the Villa Reale (now the municipal villa) in 1820 and recognised by all as the Paparelle fountain.

An ancient legend surrounds one of these sarcophagi, namely that of William II, nephew of Robert Guiscard. When William II died prematurely, his wife Gaitelgrima, in desperation, cut off his long hair and placed it on her late husband’s sarcophagus. Legend has it that every year on 4 August a golden butterfly flies into the quadriporticus and lands on the sarcophagus. The butterfly then suddenly disappears when the ghost of the sad Gaitelgrima arrives and repeats the ritual of cutting her hair.

The large four-sided portico is accessed via a double flight of steps, at the top of which stands the Porta dei Leoni (Lions’ Gate), rebuilt after the 1688 earthquake and also the protagonist of an ancient legend. It is said that during a Saracen invasion the two statues placed at its base (a lion symbol of strength and a lioness.

On the south side of the four-sided portico, the Norman bell tower rises very high: four large cubes ending in a tiburium are superimposed, reaching a height of fifty-two metres with a base of about 10 metres on each side. At sunset it is illuminated, acquiring a decidedly evocative charm. The cathedral bells are the symbol of the different architectural contaminations of the tower and the cathedral. There are eight in total, differing in size and belonging to different eras ranging from the 16th to the 19th century.

The bell tower is not the only treasure of Salerno Cathedral. Once past the quadriporticus and through the imposing bronze double doors, you enter the cathedral, which has undergone several restorations over the years, the last of which was in 1931. The floor is largely decorated with mosaics, especially in the transept area, and the two amboes of the nave are also extensively decorated, where sculptures representing elements of the animal world with symbolic significance are once again to be found amidst exquisite ornamental motifs.