Tales from the crypt- Capella Sansevero

The last century or two hasn't been kind to il Sud, southern Italy, which has struggled to keep up with the north. Most tourists prefer the north (unless, like me, you like your cities slightly dessicated and lived in then you'll want to visit). Basically, things haven't been the same since the Risorgimento- and it wasn't particularly prosperous beforehand. However, Naples did have better days - Two thousand years ago the area around Naples was THE place to see and be seen. The last golden era was in the mid-Eighteenth century when Naples was the capitol of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled then by the ultra-Catholic Spanish Bourbon princes. Naples was prosperous or the Bourbon aristocracy was and the city was renowned in Europe for its rich intellectual and cultural heritage. Today you can see some of those high enlightenment ideals expressed in the architecture and for 7 Euros (hey, high culture ain't free!) you can visit the Capella Sansevero. The chapel was the brainchild of one Prince Raimondo di Sangro, the seventh Prince of Sansevero, who called upon the reknowned artists of his day to create a unified and extremely flamboyant monument to his patrimony... and a place to keep his bones and the bones or his ancestors going back several generations. It's high baroque at it's baroquest- every detail of the chapel from the draping of the marble statues to the last fleur-di-lis is lavishly rendered. The veiled Christ by Giuseppe Sanmartino is particularly famous for the tissue-like quality of the marble... the same goes for the statue of modesty but the guard was strictly enforcing the "no photos" policy at Sansevero (I hate those guys)- so you'll just have to go to the internet to check it out (http://www.museosansevero.it/inglese/cappellasansevero/cristovelato.html). I couldn't resist sneaking a picture of one of the macabre surprise in a crypt beneath the chapel. It seems Raimondo in addition to being a man of letters was also a Grand Master of the Freemasons with an interest in science, medicine and he dabbled in ALCHEMY... He mummified a man, a woman and a fetus (the fetus appears to have gone missing). He managed to preserve the entire circulatory system- veins, arteries and all- along with the organs and tissue and the specimens remain under glass (and in remarkably good condition) in a display. No one's sure how he did it or whether these guys were living when Raimondo got his hands on them. Creepy- and very GOTH!-