Church of San Domenico

The Church of San Domenico, adjoining the College of the Piarist Schools, was also the result of the vision of the benefactor Notary Santo Cavallo, who specified that the church should be dedicated to the saint to whom he was particularly devoted. While its exterior appears modest, the interior reveals the most lavish and elegant decoration among the town’s churches, richly adorned with stucco work.

The church has a single-nave layout, with lateral arches forming shallow chapels that frame finely carved stone altars. Originally, these altars displayed several paintings of notable historical and artistic value; in the 19th century, they were replaced by the niches seen today, housing statues of strong devotional and artistic significance, including Our Lady of Sorrows, Saint Roch, Saint Lucy, and Saint Joseph Calasanzio.

At the heart of the interior stands a magnificent Baroque altar reredos, richly carved in wood and gilded. At its centre is the altarpiece depicting Saint Dominic and Saint Anthony adoring the Virgin in Glory, attributed to the school of Paolo Finoglio. On the high altar, two coats of arms testify to the church’s association with the Piarist Order, with two additional examples visible on the polychrome marble holy-water fonts.

The church also preserves important works from the Neapolitan school, such as The Lamentation over the Dead Christ and The Virgin Appearing to Saint Leonard. Other paintings, signed by the artist Donato Paolo Conversi, depict episodes from the lives of Saint Dominic of Guzmán and Saint Anthony of Padua.

Against the third pillar on the right stands a finely crafted wooden pulpit, painted, carved, polychromed, and gilded, supported by a rounded corbel and sheltered by an equally ornate canopy. Used for preaching, the pulpit—almost certainly dating to the late 17th century—echoes the choir loft above the main entrance, which houses a fine pipe organ built by Giuseppe Rubino.