San Pietro Martire is a church in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. It is located directly across from the principal building of the University of Naples on the main street, Corso Umberto, in the downtown area.

The church belongs to the first wave of construction under the Angevin

Capetian House of Anjou

The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 dynasty in Naples, which includes better-known structures such as the Maschio Angioino. Construction on San Pietro Martire was started in 1294 under Charles II of Anjou to provide a facility for the Dominican Order

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

; the church and adjacent monastery premises were finished by 1343. Between 1400 and 1500 the premises were expanded considerably to allow for a larger contingent of monks than the original dozen.
As with most Angevin buildings in Naples, San Pietro Martire underwent considerable rebuilding when the Spanish took over the Kingdom of Naples

Kingdom of Naples

The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...

 in the early 16th century, including a remake of the monastic courtyard, which, then again, was redone in 1755 in the form that one sees today. The monastery was closed under the French rule of Murat

Joachim Murat

Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...

 in the early 19th century, reopened after the restoration of the Bourbon

House of Bourbon

The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...

dynasty in 1816 and closed again by the new nation-state of modern Italy in 1864, leaving, however, the church open. The area around the premises underwent drastic remodelling in 1900 as part of a massive urban renewal of Naples, and both church and monastery were damaged by bombing in World War II due to their proximity to the port of Naples, a target of bombing raids. Restoration was completed in 1953 and the monastic grounds were converted to a tobacco processing facility. The entire premises, both church and monastery, were then taken over by the university of Naples. The monastery now houses lecture halls and the church is one of the university chapels.