The church of San Lorenzo Maggiore is located in the historical centre of Naples.

It was ordered by Charles I of Anjou in 1270-75 and was built above an early Christian church by French workmen first and was later finished by local workers.

The Basilica was strongly baroqueized in the 1600’s and 1700’s and it results an interesting mixture of various architectonic styles: the typical elements of the French Gothic, showed in the apse, intertwine with the local Gothic and with the later Neapolitan Baroque.

The façade, strongly rebuilt by F. Sanfelice in 1742, preserves the original marble portal of the Middle-Ages.

In the apse we can admire the imposing funerary monument of the Queen Catherine of Hungary a masterpiece of the very famous sculptor from Siena, Tino da Camaino.

The church was restored in 1944.

The subterranean area under the church is an interesting archaeological site where some public buildings of the ancient Greek-Roman city of Neapolis are well kept like the “Macellum”, the food- market, which dates back to the IV century B.C., the Roman building of the “Erarium”, the treasury, various shops and the original pavement of some Roman streets.