Quite different from San Gennaro, these catacombs have a claustrophobic space. We entered to the…read moreright side of the original catacomb entrance. It's inside the church. The church was built around and over the catacombs to protect it. Another history lesson you'll have to hear about on this tour. You'll find the church's interior really beautiful and grand with gates that guard the original entrance. Put away or secure all your loose belongings like cellphones, cameras, sunglasses or hats cuz you're gonna need to hold on to the sides making your narrow way downstairs to the underground. You can take pictures once you're safely flat on two feet. Oh and hopefully you ladies are wearing flats or tennies cuz it is not the kind of platform to walk pretty. The stone paths further in are just right for one person, cozy for two. Making your way through, there are more turns. There's an area we stopped to learn about how the rich back in those times, were the only ones who can afford the service where their loved ones whom have passed away were "treated" in the section that drains body fluids into a container placed beneath the corpse. When the flesh deteriorated the skeleton's skull would often fall. And so the skull would be placed on a stone shelf just above their bones; lined up across. (A scene you may find familiar in many Latin cultures especially during Dia de Muertos.) It wasn't a sanitary practice, but we're talking history, and change came with time. Giovanni Balducci was a Tuscan artist who was hired to be the only one that painted skeletons at San Gaudisio catacombs. These are the only catacombs known to have placed the skulls of the dead in the concrete (see photos)... again, for the rich who were able to afford the service. Along the shorter gallery (in comparison to San Gennaro's larger expanse), the painted skeleton of the men are on left; women are on the right painted with skirts. P.S. your entrance ticket to San Gennaro gets you into these catacombs for free - two for one.

Breathtaking glimpse into the world that will be our final destination ... one day …read more.. Sanità is one of the poorest communities (if not THE poorest) of Naples with a high rate of unemployment among young people. So it was totally exciting to discover such a unique historical gem underneath this troubled district`s parish church Santa Maria della Sanità. Coming here on foot was not easy since traffic in Naples is crazy like hell and pavements blocked or nonexistent. Be prepared to be a meandering river and go with the flow ;O). But it is more than worth coming here and spending 9 € - the same ticket is valid for Catacombe di San Gennaro (12 months onward from day of purchase!! - keep the ticket!!). Monday to Sunday there are guided tours on the hour between 10 am and 1 pm - one in Italian and one in English language. Very nice and knowledgeable people will take you on a journey back in time when this place was a medieval necropolis, a Christian cemetery from the 4th century until the Late Middle Ages. Then relics of the saints got retrieved and buried within the city wall. Abandoned till the 17th century, it then became a burial place for nobles and the clergy. The dead would be placed in a cavity with broken arms and legs and a vessel underneath. Then their bodies would get cut multiple times to let all liquids flow into the vessel. This method got called "the draining" performed by the "schiattamuorto". Finally, skull and bones got cleaned and laid to rest ... or ... the skulls would get fixed on the wall and the "bodies" painted fresco-style. Ladies would get a skirt (no naked female pelvis allowed even after death!) and judges their black robes. Simply amazing to see what is left of the skulls and the frescos nowadays ... hundreds of years later ... pretty close to immortality ...