Grotta dei Santi
Calvi Risorta (CE)
Hidden gemSacred art
The story
In the tufo (volcanic tuff) belly above the Rio dei Lanzi, sixty life-size saints have been staring at you out of the dark for a thousand years. A rock-cut chapel frescoed from the 10th to the 13th century, a stone's throw from ancient Cales.
Access
Exterior FREE; interior gated, visits only with a guide or the Pro Loco
More gems in Calvi Risorta
- History & archaeology
Antica Cales
Calvi Risorta (CE)
At Calvi Risorta rests Cales, the town that gave its name to a wine praised by the Romans, with amphitheatre, baths and a theatre immersed in the Caserta countryside.
- Sacred art
Grotta delle Fornelle
Calvi Risorta (CE)
It was a Roman cistern, then it became a church and a cemetery carved into the tufo (volcanic tuff): on the far wall a monumental Ascension keeps watch over tombs hollowed out of the rock.
More gems: Sacred art
Sacred artCappella Sansevero (Cristo Velato)
Napoli (NA)
Beneath a veil of marble that still seems to breathe, Sanmartino's Cristo Velato rests in the chapel's half-light, and the whiteness of the stone deceives every eye.
Sacred artDuomo di Napoli
Napoli
Three times a year the city holds its breath as the blood of San Gennaro waits to liquefy, among Gothic naves and the gold of the chapel devoted to him.
Sacred artCappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro
Napoli
Behind a bronze gate lie silverware, gems and the jewel-studded mitre of the saint: a treasure heaped up over centuries by the devotion of Naples.
Sacred artChiesa del Gesù Nuovo
Napoli
The facade of pyramid-cut piperno stone hides symbols carved into the blocks, while inside the Baroque bursts out in marble and in the memory of the physician Giuseppe Moscati.
Sacred artChiostro di Santa Chiara
Napoli
A garden of pillars clad in yellow and blue majolica, where lemon pergolas and eighteenth-century scenes painted on the tiles keep the noise of the city at bay.
- Sacred art
Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco
Via Tribunali 39
Bronze skulls stand guard at the entrance, and down in the hypogeum the cult of the anime pezzentelle (adopted souls of the dead) still leaves flowers and prayers beside abandoned crania.