Santa Restituta

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Santa Restituta is a church in Naples, southern Italy, dedicated to Saint Restituta.

It is the original 6th-century paleo-Christian church on the site where the Cathedral of Naples now stands, and was rebuilt and incorporated into the cathedral when that building was put up in the 13th century.

Santa Restituta presents a nave with two aisles divided by 27 antique columns, and forms a large separate part of the cathedral, itself. The name derives from the legend that a young African woman, who, because she was a Christian, was abandoned to the sea on a boat set ablaze. The fire, however, died out and she was miraculously able to put ashore on the island of Ischia. In the eighth century her remains were brought to the church in Naples that then took her name -- Restituta meaning "returned" from, or "given back" by, death.