Life and Death: the hidden treasures of the Sanità and Capodimonte
Via Sanità: Via Sanità is in the heart of this enclosed area. From the Sanità bridge crossing via Sanità you can see how the area lies at the foot of the higher and more salubrious Capodimonte district. Along the street are aristocratic façades and churches, squeezed between modest-looking buildings housing small businesses and shops, including the famous taralli sellers.
Palazzo Sanfelice: Ferdinando Sanfelice built the imposing and original Palazzo Sanfelice for his family in 1728. Built in the Baroque style, it includes a hawk-wing staircase (so named because of its form), the style of which was copied a decade later in the nearby Palazzo dello Spagnolo (via Vergini 19). It's worth going inside to find out more about the palace's unusual layout, and to visit the garden at the rear.
Santa Maria della Sanità: This church, also known as San Vincenzo, was built in 1613, designed on the pattern of a Greek cross. The huge central dome is supported by 24 columns, and has 12 smaller domes around it. There is also an early Christian stone pulpit where pregnant women can sit to gain protection against losing their babies. Below the church there are the
Catacombe di San Gaudioso: This catacombs have acquired their fame from the burial there of San Gaudioso, an african bishop from the fifth century AD who was stripped of all of his belongings and set adrift in an old boat, which fortuitously landed at Naples. He set up a monastery and diedaround AD 452. His burial place here became a shrine, and there are still traces of frescoes. The catacombs continued to be used as a cemetery, and there are some gruesome remains from the 17th century, when the skulls were set into the wall and the outlines of the skeletons were drawn below them.
Cimitero delle Fontanelle: This cemetery has its own unique atmosphere, as befits a meeting-place between the world of the living and the dead. Here you'll see thousands of skulls and other bones belonging to unknown dead that are now tended by their 'adopted families'. This is done in return for protection and the answering of prayers.
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte: This art gallery is housed in the royal palace built by the Bourbon King Charles III when Naples became the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The large Farnese collection was brought here and added to, and the museum holds an exceptional anthology of italian painting (including Caravaggio, Correggio and Lotto) and Flemish paintings (Brueghel). The Portrait of Antea by Parmigianino is very fine. Have a look, too, at Queen Maria Amalia's unusual porcelain parlour, and the collection of modern art.
Back to the complete travel guide to Naples'summary
