Description
The Catacombs of San Gaudioso are an early Christian underground cemetery (4th–5th century) beneath the basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità, in the Sanità district of Naples. They are famous for a seventeenth-century custom that is a little unsettling: skulls set into the walls, and under each one a painted body that tells the trade of the deceased.
The entrance is from the crypt of the basilica, under the raised presbytery. Opposite is the tomb of Saint Gaudiosus, in an arcosolium with a sixth-century mosaic.
According to tradition the saint was buried here, a bishop from North Africa shipwrecked at Naples, where he founded a monastery and died in the odor of sanctity, between 451 and 453. Since then the place has carried his name. On the vault and walls of the crypt, frescoes by Bernardino Fera tell stories of martyrs.
Along the arms of the catacombs open burial chambers with early Christian frescoes of the fifth and sixth centuries, including Saint Peter and Saint Sossius, deacon of Pozzuoli, and a mosaic from the late fifth century. The dead Christ carved in tuff, to the left of the entrance, dates from the end of the seventeenth century.
The most surprising part is the skulls on the walls. In the seventeenth century the catacombs found a new use, above all by the Dominican friars, who were convinced that the head was the most important part of the body, as the seat of thoughts.
First the corpses were left to dry in stone niches, the drains, where they lost their fluids; then the heads were kept and the rest of the body ended up in the ossuaries.
For the wealthiest it became a macabre fashion: the dried skull was set into the wall, and below it a body was painted indicating the trade of the deceased. The custom was later abandoned for reasons of hygiene.
Humidity has worn away the front of the skulls: only the cranial vault remains. Many of these are smaller than those of a man today, and the difference is attributed to better nutrition and better health in general.
In the Middle Ages the Sanità valley had been left deserted, buried under mudslides coming down from the hill of Capodimonte. Only from the sixteenth century did the neighborhood begin to fill with people again, and the name “Sanità” (health) recalls the healthy air and the miraculous healings attributed to the catacombs.
In the seventeenth century, with the building of the basilica right above the old church of San Gaudioso, the cemetery was “modernized” with major alterations, and some parts were destroyed. After the plague of 1656 the tuff quarries of the valley became an enormous open-air cemetery. Only a small part of the original catacombs remains.
Don't miss
• The tomb of Saint Gaudiosus.
• The early Christian frescoes of the burial chambers.
• The skulls on the walls with their painted bodies.
• The drains.
Did you know?
• The little Antonio de Curtis, the future Totò, played hide-and-seek in these catacombs.
• A skeleton painted by Giovanni Balducci among the tunnels may have inspired his poem 'A livella.
The entrance is from the crypt of the basilica, under the raised presbytery. Opposite is the tomb of Saint Gaudiosus, in an arcosolium with a sixth-century mosaic.
According to tradition the saint was buried here, a bishop from North Africa shipwrecked at Naples, where he founded a monastery and died in the odor of sanctity, between 451 and 453. Since then the place has carried his name. On the vault and walls of the crypt, frescoes by Bernardino Fera tell stories of martyrs.
Along the arms of the catacombs open burial chambers with early Christian frescoes of the fifth and sixth centuries, including Saint Peter and Saint Sossius, deacon of Pozzuoli, and a mosaic from the late fifth century. The dead Christ carved in tuff, to the left of the entrance, dates from the end of the seventeenth century.
The most surprising part is the skulls on the walls. In the seventeenth century the catacombs found a new use, above all by the Dominican friars, who were convinced that the head was the most important part of the body, as the seat of thoughts.
First the corpses were left to dry in stone niches, the drains, where they lost their fluids; then the heads were kept and the rest of the body ended up in the ossuaries.
For the wealthiest it became a macabre fashion: the dried skull was set into the wall, and below it a body was painted indicating the trade of the deceased. The custom was later abandoned for reasons of hygiene.
Humidity has worn away the front of the skulls: only the cranial vault remains. Many of these are smaller than those of a man today, and the difference is attributed to better nutrition and better health in general.
In the Middle Ages the Sanità valley had been left deserted, buried under mudslides coming down from the hill of Capodimonte. Only from the sixteenth century did the neighborhood begin to fill with people again, and the name “Sanità” (health) recalls the healthy air and the miraculous healings attributed to the catacombs.
In the seventeenth century, with the building of the basilica right above the old church of San Gaudioso, the cemetery was “modernized” with major alterations, and some parts were destroyed. After the plague of 1656 the tuff quarries of the valley became an enormous open-air cemetery. Only a small part of the original catacombs remains.
Don't miss
• The tomb of Saint Gaudiosus.
• The early Christian frescoes of the burial chambers.
• The skulls on the walls with their painted bodies.
• The drains.
Did you know?
• The little Antonio de Curtis, the future Totò, played hide-and-seek in these catacombs.
• A skeleton painted by Giovanni Balducci among the tunnels may have inspired his poem 'A livella.