Italy Guide
Campania
Capella Sansevero
Address: Via de Sanctis
Opening time: Mon & Tues– Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 10am–1.30pm
Price: €6
One of the city's odder monuments, the Capella Sansevero, the tomb-chapel of the di Sangro family, decorated by the sculptor Giuseppe Sammartino in the mid-eighteenth century. The decoration is extraordinary, the centrepiece a carving of a dead Christ, laid out flat and covered with a veil of stark and remarkable realism, not least because it was carved out of a single piece of marble. Even more accomplished is the veiled figure of Modesty on the left, and, on the right, its twin Disillusionment, in the form of a woeful figure struggling with marble netting. Look, too, at the effusive Deposition on the high altar and the memorial above the doorway, which shows one Cecco di Sangro climbing out of his tomb, sword in hand. You might also want to venture downstairs. The man responsible for the chapel, Prince Raimondo, was a well-known eighteenth-century alchemist, and down here are the results of some of his experiments: bodies of an upright man and woman, behind glass, their capillaries and most of their organs preserved by a mysterious liquid developed by the prince – who, incidentally, was excommunicated by the pope for such practices. Even now the black entanglements make for a gruesome sight.