Pozzuoli Cathedral

Pozzuoli Cathedral or the Basilica of San Procolo martire is the main Roman Catholic church in Pozzuoli and the seat of the Diocese of Pozzuoli. It sits at the top of the Rione Terra and is built around an ancient Roman temple.

The site probably originated as part of the town's capitolium of the Greek or Samnite era, radically rebuilt in the Republican and Augustan eras. The church was first housed in a former Roman temple, the Temple of Augustus built by the rich merchant Lucius Calpurnius. Its dedicatory inscription survives, reading L. Calpurnius L.f. templum Aug. cum ornamentis d.s.f. . It was designed by the architect Cocceius Auctus on the remains of an earlier Republican temple built in 194 BC, which had been restored by Sulla in 78 BC. The Temple of Augustus was a pseudoperipteral exastyle temple, with nine fluted Corinthian columns along each long side and a rectangular cella formed of white marble blocks. The whole temple was built without the use of mortar. Between the end of the 5th and the start of the 6th century the inhabitants of the town decided to rededicate the temple as a church to Proculus of Pozzuoli. In 1538 it suffered major damage as Tripergole subsided and Monte Nuovo was formed. Bishop Gian Matteo Castaldo restored it, funding it by selling off all the episcopal stable-ware of the value of 200 gold ducats or less, for which he was given permission by Pope Paul III on 16 June 1544.

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