Description
The Fontanelle Cemetery is an ossuary dug into the tuff under the Materdei hill, in Naples' Sanità district. In galleries up to 15 meters high it holds about 40,000 nameless remains, a place both striking and strange, tied to a unique popular cult: that of the adopted skulls.
The Fontanelle were tuff quarries, from which the material to build the city was extracted. From 1656, the year of a plague that killed at least three hundred thousand people, they became the place to bring those who had no grave. Then came the cholera of 1836, and the bones emptied out of church burial vaults ended up here too.
The cemetery has three great naves, like a basilica, about a hundred meters long. The left one is the nave of the priests, the central one of the plague victims, the right one of the pezzentielli, the poor. On the sides, long piles of skulls, shinbones and thighbones.
The visit begins in the little Church of the Carmine, which gives access to the quarries. Right inside, two coffins with clothed skeletons: a noble couple, Filippo Carafa and his wife Margherita, who has her mouth open and for that reason was said to have choked on a dumpling.
In the nave of the priests stands the Monacone, a beheaded statue of Saint Vincent Ferrer on which someone has put a skull in place of the head. At the far end is the Tribunal, three crosses on a base of skulls where, so the story goes, the bosses of the old Camorra used to meet.
In the nave of the plague victims, past the Calvary, are the adopted skulls, in marble cases with the words "Per grazia ricevuta" ("For grace received"), a name and a year. Those who could not afford one kept the skull in a box, even a biscuit tin. Here too is the large chapel of shinbones and thighbones, with a Sacred Heart at the center.
For centuries in Naples you could adopt a skull. You chose it because the dead person's soul had appeared to you in a dream, you polished it, you gave it a name. In return it protected the family: these were the anime pezzentelle, the abandoned souls of Purgatory.
In 1969 the Church banned the cult of individual skulls, considering it a pagan belief. From 1872 Canon Gaetano Barbati, with a group of the faithful, had sorted the bones by type; earlier, a flood had swept them through the streets.
Don't miss
• The Captain's skull.
• The adopted skulls in their cases.
• The Tribunal.
• The three naves.
Did you know?
• The Captain's skull has a black eye socket, and a legend says a skeptical groom poked it with a stick: the Captain turned up at his wedding.
• It was said that Giacomo Leopardi, who died during the cholera, rested here too: in fact he was buried elsewhere.
The Fontanelle were tuff quarries, from which the material to build the city was extracted. From 1656, the year of a plague that killed at least three hundred thousand people, they became the place to bring those who had no grave. Then came the cholera of 1836, and the bones emptied out of church burial vaults ended up here too.
The cemetery has three great naves, like a basilica, about a hundred meters long. The left one is the nave of the priests, the central one of the plague victims, the right one of the pezzentielli, the poor. On the sides, long piles of skulls, shinbones and thighbones.
The visit begins in the little Church of the Carmine, which gives access to the quarries. Right inside, two coffins with clothed skeletons: a noble couple, Filippo Carafa and his wife Margherita, who has her mouth open and for that reason was said to have choked on a dumpling.
In the nave of the priests stands the Monacone, a beheaded statue of Saint Vincent Ferrer on which someone has put a skull in place of the head. At the far end is the Tribunal, three crosses on a base of skulls where, so the story goes, the bosses of the old Camorra used to meet.
In the nave of the plague victims, past the Calvary, are the adopted skulls, in marble cases with the words "Per grazia ricevuta" ("For grace received"), a name and a year. Those who could not afford one kept the skull in a box, even a biscuit tin. Here too is the large chapel of shinbones and thighbones, with a Sacred Heart at the center.
For centuries in Naples you could adopt a skull. You chose it because the dead person's soul had appeared to you in a dream, you polished it, you gave it a name. In return it protected the family: these were the anime pezzentelle, the abandoned souls of Purgatory.
In 1969 the Church banned the cult of individual skulls, considering it a pagan belief. From 1872 Canon Gaetano Barbati, with a group of the faithful, had sorted the bones by type; earlier, a flood had swept them through the streets.
Don't miss
• The Captain's skull.
• The adopted skulls in their cases.
• The Tribunal.
• The three naves.
Did you know?
• The Captain's skull has a black eye socket, and a legend says a skeptical groom poked it with a stick: the Captain turned up at his wedding.
• It was said that Giacomo Leopardi, who died during the cholera, rested here too: in fact he was buried elsewhere.