Church of St. George

Overlooking the impersonal façade on Via Duomo, the Church of St. George stands as the most beautiful Baroque church extant in Salerno, rich in fine frescoes. It dates back to the’8th century, built on the foundations of an even older church dedicated to the eastern saint.

The church, which we see today, is part of the renovation, carried out in the last thirty years of the 17th century, of the old Monastery of St. George, which currently houses the Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza barracks. With post-earthquake restoration in 1980, the remains of a absidal frescoed structure, dating from before the 10th century, have re-emerged below the current floor: to make them visible, an electric device has been installed that raises the floor.

The church’s interior has a single nave, covered by a hooked barrel vault, with side chapels, a rectangular transept, surmounted by a dome, and a square space behind the altar.

In this church are of note:

• the panel painting by Andrea Sabatini of Salerno with the Virgin with Child among St. Augustine, St. Scholastica, St. Benedict and an Evangelist (1523);
• the frescoes by Angelo and Francesco Solimena from the second half of the 17th century. By F. Solimena are the stories of Saints Tecla, Archelaa and Susanna and the painting with St. Michael the Archangel;
• the gilded stuccoes by the Vietrese craftsman Nicola d’Acunto (1694-1695);
• the seventeenth-century high altar in polychrome marble, with mother-of-pearl inserts and white marble reliefs, with a statue of St. George slaying the dragon, attributed to the Carraresi masters Pietro and Bartolomeo Ghetti.
• the series of paintings, placed on the counterfacade and transept, the work of the early 1700s by Giovanni Battista Lama, a pupil of Paolo de Matteis.