About the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore (Saint Paul Major) in Naples, Italy:
A church was first built here in the 8th-9th century to commemorate a Neapolitan victory over the Saracens. In 1538, the site was granted to the Theatine order founded by Saint Cajetan (Gaetano Thiene), who is buried here. Major reconstruction in the late 16th-17th centuries transformed it into its current Baroque form. The basilica suffered damage in a 1688 earthquake (which caused part of the façade to collapse) and from World War II bombings, but it was restored each time. Pope Pius XII elevated it to minor basilica status in 1951.
About Saint Catejan:
Saint Cajetan (also known as Gaetano dei Conti di Thiene) was an Italian Catholic priest and religious reformer born in October 1480 in Vicenza, Republic of Venice, to a noble family. His father died when he was young, and he was raised with a strong pious influence from his mother. He studied law at the University of Padua, earning a doctorate in civil and canon law by age 24.
In 1506, he worked as a diplomat in the papal court of Pope Julius II. After the pope’s death in 1513, Cajetan left court life, was ordained a priest in 1516 at age 36, and dedicated himself to charity and reform.He joined the Oratory of Divine Love in Rome, a group focused on piety and helping the poor. He founded hospitals for the incurably ill in Vicenza and Venice, cared for plague victims, and established “mounts of piety”—charitable pawnshops offering low-interest loans to protect the poor from usurers (one in Naples evolved into the Bank of Naples).
In 1524, he co-founded the Theatines (Order of Clerics Regular) with three others, including Giovanni Pietro Carafa (later Pope Paul IV). The order emphasized clerical reform, asceticism, preaching, and service during the Catholic Counter-Reformation era, when Church corruption was widespread. Unlike Martin Luther, Cajetan worked for renewal from within.
He is famously depicted receiving the Infant Jesus from the Virgin Mary, based on a reported mystical vision he had on Christmas night 1517 in Rome.
About the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore (Saint Paul Major) in Naples, Italy:
It is located on Piazza Gaetano, about 1-2 blocks north of Via dei Tribunali.
Address: Piazza San Gaetano, 69, 80138 Napoli NA, Italy