Santa Chiara, Baroque monastery in Nocera Inferiore, Italy.

Santa Chiara is a Poor Clares monastery at the foot of San Pantaleone hill, on the border between Nocera Inferiore and Pagani at the end of Corso Vecchio. A classical portal on State Road 18 opens onto a small courtyard with the church at its far end. The visible structure largely dates to Domenico Antonio Vaccaro's renovation, completed in 1796, though traces of the 14th-century building remain.

Founded in 1283 for the Poor Clares at the foot of San Pantaleone hill, the monastery was buried by a landslide a few years later. The two surviving nuns were received by the Conventual Franciscans of Sant'Antonio, who gave them the property where the complex still stands. A storm in 1742 destroyed the facade and bell tower; the rebuilding to Domenico Antonio Vaccaro's design was completed in 1796. Suppressed after Italian unification, it was bought back by the nuns in 1905 for 24,000 lire.

The church keeps a 1680 painting by Angelo Solimena showing the Madonna and Child with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony, and in the choir a 1677 image of the Virgin nursing the Child, frescoed for Sister Flavia Longobardi. The first altar on the right was made in 1789 to a design by Orazio Solimena. A venerated image of the Madonna Bruna is also kept here.

Access is from a classical portal on State Road 18 at the end of Corso Vecchio, opening onto a small courtyard with the church at its far end. The complex sits on the border between Nocera Inferiore and Pagani, at the foot of San Pantaleone hill. The cloister and museum rooms are inside the enclosure, so expect to enter through the courtyard rather than from the hillside.

Restoration work in an old cellar area uncovered a hidden 15th-century fresco that had been lost to time. This discovery led to the creation of a small exhibition space with historical objects on site.