Piazza del Plebiscito col Sedile di San Luigi (1195)

             The Seggio of San Luigi is the only medieval monument of the kind of the town still existing, the others, the Seggitiello di Piazza and the seat of Sant'Andrea, were all demolished. This, allocated as a place of conference, was used previously also to administer the justice.

            The Seggio, next to the Palace Masola, later Bonavita, of XIV cent. (the Catalan portal and the windows bifore of the last level are seen), of grey stone, with the others was given to the town by Emperor Henry VI in 1195 and, like the Seggi of Naples, also it belonged to the Noblemen; it was ruled by the Monte della Pietà (1599) till when it went to the Chiesa of Santa Maria of the Popolo.

            The seat during the following years suffered, like the others of the town, serious damages so much that in 1692 it was entirely reconstructed, as the imprinted epigraph put in an inside span says:

ILLUSTRIVM FAMILIARIVM CIVITATIS AVERSAE / MONVMENTVM DEDIT / ENRICVS VI ROM. IMP. ET SICILIAE REX / BARONIBVS AC MILITIBVS ILLIVS / ANNO 1195 / ELARGITVS SEDILIA / QVIBVS VETVSTATE FERE LABEFACTIS / HOC VNO INSTAVRATO / ET AD POLITIOREM FORMAM REDACTO / ANNO 1692 / EORVM ANTIQUISSIMAE NOBILITATIS MEMORIAM / A TEMPORVM INIVRIA VINDICARVNT / PROCERES / EIVSDEM VRBIS

            The loggia of two spans is covered with vaults with round arcs. The external space is fenced by a low wall on which an artistic gate performed in 1913 by the pupils of the Artistic Institute of San Lorenzo of Aversa stands.

            On the right side of the Seat we can see the beautiful church of San Domenico. This was founded by Carlo of Angiò in 1278 on another church, Sant'Antonino (soon after he founded also the convent ) and completed by his son Charles II. The part of XIII cent.of the church is observable at the exterior of the apse where there is the big window between two buttresses formed by four corners. The Domenicani lived there till 1808; in 1813 the convent was given to the Small Observant of the Maddalena, that stayed there till 1911. The church in origin presented one scheme of big rectangular classroom, similar to Sant'Antonio, till when, in 1742, the monastic Order, thought of a radical restauration, giving the work, almost certainly to architect Phillip Raguzzini (Raguzzini, that followed the pope Benedict XIII in his trips, he was forced to follow him also in one of the visits that this paid to his friend cardinal Caracciolo, bishop of Aversa, and to the confreres of San Domenico), who used, for the façade of the church, the plan for the competition of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. It is intended however that this episode by the school of Ragozzini is not the unique in town.


Church of S. Domenico (1742) by F. Raguzzini

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Artistic-monumental patrimony