Santuario della Madonna del Taburno
Bucciano (BN)
KnownSacred art
The story
In 1401 a deaf-mute shepherdess, Agnese Pepe, is said to have heard the Madonna's voice coming from a cave on the Taburno. On the spot of the miracle a convent grew at 544 metres, today a silent balcony over the Valle Caudina.
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More gems in Bucciano
- Sacred art
Grotta di San Simeone
Bucciano (BN)
A thirteen-metre cleft in the rock of the Taburno, lined with rock frescoes and a Byzantine-flavoured Christ enthroned. San Simeone, here, was invoked as the protector of fair weather.
- In the water & diving
Sorgenti del Fizzo (Acquedotto Carolino)
Bucciano (BN)
From here the water sets off on thirty-eight kilometres to make the fountains of the Reggia di Caserta play: point zero of Vanvitelli's hydraulic masterpiece, a UNESCO site that almost nobody comes to see.
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.