La chiesa della Croce di Lucca. L’architettura

Founded in the Sixteenth Century by the community of Lucchesi in the Port'Alba area for the cult of SS. Crocifisso venerated in Lucca, the church of Croce di Lucca, together with the adjoining monastery belonging to the Order of Carmelites, was restored in the next Century by the work of Francesco Antonio Picchiatti. During the Eighteenth Century, a new altar designed by Ferdinando Sanfelice was placed in the tribune and sacresty by Giovan Battista Manni was created. After the unification of Italy, with the integration of the Croce di Lucca into the property of the State and the rehousing of the Carmelite nuns elsewhere, an inevitable decadence began. Howewer, yet another thereat loomed on the property that was even greater than the effects of decline and negligence, namely the extension project for the Univesrity of Naples to areas close to the religious complex. After the heavy demolition of the monasteries of the Sapienza and the Croce di Lucca, also the church risked a permanent distruction. A large group of people known as "the friends of the Arts", among whom Benedetto Croce, launched an urgent appeal on the pages of Neapolitan newspapers and managed to save the ancient church of the Croce di Lucca after much controversy, despite a radical cut on the original apsis