Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro

The Royal Chapel of the Treasure of St. Januarius, or the Reale cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro, is a chapel located in the Cathedral of Naples, Italy, and dedicated to St. Januarius, patron saint of the city. This is the most lavishly decorated chapel in the Cathedral, and contains contributions by the premier Baroque artists in Naples.

In the years 1526 to 1527, Naples endured a siege by the French, a resurgence of the plague, and a volcanic eruption by Vesuvius with its accompanying earthquakes. The surviving Neapolitans pledged to erect a chapel to their patron saint, St. Januarius. In 1527, the population of the elected city in a notarized document pledged a thousand ducats for the tabernacle, and 10,000 ducats to build the new chapel. On February 5, 1601, the "elect of the city" appointed a committee of twelve lay members, called on the "Deputation" to build of the new chapel. Work began in 1608, ended in 1646. The cost exceeded 480,000 scudi. Work was temporarily delayed because the cardinal Archbishop Francesco Boncompagni strongly opposed the exemption of the Deputation from the jurisdiction of the diocesan order, even though the church did not fund its construction; however in 1605, the Deputation, in fact, won the Papal Bull by Pope Paul V to begin on the construction of the sacred place. Centuries later, after the Naples joined the Kingdom of Italy, the chapel was exempted from lists of those religious structures confiscated by the state.

Thanks to various papal bulls, the real Treasury Chapel of San Gennaro does not belong to the diocesan curia, but to the city of Naples, and represented by an ancient institution, which still exists today, the "Deputation", elected from diverse zones of Naples.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the chapel was also used for musical activities, with the presence of masters such as Cimarosa, Paisiello, Francesco Provenzale Francesco Durante, Scarlatti and Charles Broschi.

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