Sant'Anna alle Paludi, Catholic church in Mercato district, Naples, Italy

Sant'Anna alle Paludi is a single-nave church on Corso Arnaldo Lucci in Naples' Mercato district. Its simple interior lines turn neo-Baroque only in the dome, the one part completed to Alfredo Belli's late-19th-century design. The marble high altar, signed by Neapolitan craftsmen and dated 1710, carries a relief of the Madonna and Child; above it hangs Andrea da Salerno's gold-ground triptych of the Madonna delle Grazie with Saints John the Baptist and Elpidio.

The church was built by the University of the Hortolani before 1350, as recorded in a 17th-century catalogue of Neapolitan churches. In 1850 Bourbon land reclamation raised Via Stella Polare, leaving the church five metres below street level, so the portal became a vestibule with a double staircase. It became a parish in 1914, with Don Arturo Sorsaja as first parish priest, and in 1995 its title was shortened to Sant'Anna alle Paludi.

The name comes from the marshy land drained under Charles II of Anjou, and the church was long called Santa Maria delle Grazie. Devotion to Saint Anne, mother of Mary, is documented from the late 1600s; her carved half-figure, about a metre tall with glass eyes, is credited with protecting the church and the Mercato district.

The church stands on Corso Arnaldo Lucci in the Mercato district, in the area known as Case Nuove. Because the street was raised in 1850, the church lies five metres below road level; entry is through a vestibule with a double staircase. The building is at street level from the corso, so visitors reach the raised threshold by the steps.

The wooden half-bust of Saint Anne with the child Mary, 100 cm tall with glass eyes, is traditionally attributed to Giuseppe Picano, though scholar Teodoro Fittipaldi dated it to 1770 and others link it to Giovanni Verzella. The first record of the statue in the church is a 1825 note for a restoration.