Descrizione
Neapolitan Skulls
By purchasing the jewel you contribute to the organization of workshops for the neighborhood kids.
Collection established in collaboration with the Santa Maria delle anime del Purgatorio Museum Complex.
It is intended through our artifacts to tell the story that binds the Neapolitan people to the cult of life after death .
The Neapolitan people had a special devotion to the purgative souls whom they considered special inter mediators to obtain graces.
Neapolitan skulls thanks to the prayers of the faithful go from purgatory to heaven .
In the hypogeum of the Church of Purgatory in Arco, the spontaneous and popular cult to the “Anime Pezzentelle” still lives on.
Neapolitans adopts a skull that appeared in his dream, prays for him and asks for “Graces” in return.
The church was built in 1616 on a project by Giovanni Cola di Franco and Giovan Giacomo Di Conforto commissioned by several Neapolitan noble families. The goal was to create a burial place for the city’s poor, family-less and homeless people.In the heart of the old center of Naples, along Via dei Tribunali, is the church of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco, known to the Neapolitan people as the church “de ‘e cape ‘e morte”. Crossing its threshold begins a real journey into Neapolitan culture among art, faith, life, and death. From the small and beautiful 17th century church, which holds Dionisio Lazzari’s precious marbles and Winged Skull, along with masterpieces by Massimo Stanzione, Luca Giordano and Andrea Vaccaro, one descends into the ancient and grandiose hypogeum that still hosts the fascinating worship addressed to anonymous human remains that become special intermediaries for invocations, prayers, requests for intercessions. A small museum set up in the spaces of the elegant sacristy completes the itinerary.
