I'll be in my room painting. or napping.

myvaginaisnowemotionallyshaken:

The Fontanelle cemetery in Naples is a charnel house, an ossuary, located in a cave in the tuff hillside in the Materdei section of the city. It is the source of a fascinating chapter in the folklore of the city. By the time the Spanish moved into the city in the early 16th century, there was already concern over where to locate cemeteries, and moves had been taken to locate graves outside of the city walls. Many Neapolitans, however, insisted on being interred in their local churches. To make space in the churches for the newly interred, undertakers started removing earlier remains outside the city to the cave, the future Fontanelle cemetery. The remains were interred shallowly and then joined in 1656 by thousands of anonymous corpses, victims of the great plague of that year.

corpses, victims of the great plague of that year.

Sometime in the late 17th century—according to Andrea De Jorio, a Neapolitan scholar from the 19th century, great floods washed the remains out and into the streets, presenting a grisly spectacle. The anonymous remains were returned to the cave, at which point the cave became the unofficial final resting place for the indigent of the city in the succeeding years—a vast paupers’ cemetery. It was codified officially as such in the early 19th century under the French rule of Naples. The last great “deposit” of the indigent dead seems to have been in the wake of the cholera epidemic of 1837.

Then, in 1872, Father Gaetano Barbati had the chaotically buried skeletal remains disinterred and catalogued. They remained on the surface, stored in makeshift crypts, in boxes and on wooden racks. A spontaneous cult of devotion to the remains of these unnamed dead developed in Naples. Defenders of the cult pointed out that they were paying respect to those who had had none in life, who had been too poor even to have a proper burial. Devotees paid visits to the skulls, cleaned them—”adopted” them, in a way, even giving the skulls back their “living” names (revealed to their caretakers in dreams). An entire cult sprang up, devoted to caring for the skulls, talking to them, asking for favors, bringing them flowers, etc.

baabuniverse:

Along the ancient road of the Tribunali, in Naples, is the church of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco. The visit to the monument is an immersion in Baroque art, including works of Massimo Stanzione, Luca Giordano, Andrea Vaccaro, Dioniso Lazzari.

Going downstairs, however, you can access the “Purgatory”: a large unadorned church where the baroque excess disappears and gives way to a conceptual dimension.

Every detail, down there, remember the aesthetics and poetics of Christian Boltanski, particularly the works in which the French artist prepares environments of extreme formal elegance; uses the notion of “lost time” and the category of “memory” through photographs from common family albums, pictures of dead people, objects and evocative phrases.

Moreover, in the lower church was born a cult intimately linked to the notions of “memory” and “lost time”. It is the cult of the “Anime pezzentelle”, or anonymous human remains (skulls and bones found in mass graves) as adopted by the people and re-interpreted by the faithful as intermediaries for their special prayers.

At this purgatory can freely access only a few people who by virtue of special biographical obtained by the priests the “piece of the faithful”: they are the guardians of the “Anime pezzentelle”, which bear flowers and other gifts.

The public, however, can visit the underground at fixed times and accompanied by a guardian. Since May 2011, the underground houses a sculpture by contemporary artist Aniello Scotto, the title is “Can you eat poison and give birth to death.”

Church of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco. Picture:

1-  Hypogeum, the central room.

2 - Hypogeum, the central room.

3 - Hypogeum, corridor.

4 - Hypogeum, the second room. Altar made ​​of piperno (volcanic rock) dating from the eighteenth century.

5 - Hypogeum, the second room. A skull recalls the memory of the soul of Lucia, who died in a shipwreck along with her ​​husband. The soul of Lucia are required intercessions. She is offered flowers and pictures of family members as a votive offering.

6 - Hypogeum, the central room. Ex voto.

7 - Hypogeum, the central room. Sculpture by contemporary artist Aniello Scotto titled “You can eat poison and give birth to death.”

8 - Hypogeum, the central room. “Piece of the faithful”.

9 - Upper church. Detail of the altarpiece of the “Madonna of the Souls in Purgatory” (1638-42) by Massimo Stanzione and detail of marble frame decorated with winged skulls performed by Dionysus Lazzari (about 1669).

10 – Upper church. View of the upper church with the altarpiece of the “Madonna of the Souls in Purgatory” (1638-42) by Massimo Stanzione. Above the work of Stanzione is the “Sant’Anna offers the child Virgin to the Eternal Father” (1670) painted by Giacomo Farelli. On the left wall there is a statue of Julius Mastrilli sculpted by Andrea Falcone in 1672, which marks the location of the tomb below.