Welcome to the site Napoliforme

CURRENTLY THE FONTANELLE CEMETERY IS CLOSED - FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE MUNICIPALITY OF NAPLES DIRECTLYThe steep Fontanelle creek on Materdei hill leads to a picturesque place, the fulcrum of the Neapolitan religious tradition of the cult of the souls in purgatory. These are the anime pezzentelle, anonymous dead with no relatives and no burial place, adopted by the living, who establish a relationship of mutual devotion with them. In the remains, precise characters are 'recognised', with a name and a history, restoring an identity to the forgotten dead. Having become intermediaries between mortals and saints, in exchange for the prayers and care dedicated to them - the candles, the boxes that collect the remains (the scarabbattoli), the periodic cleaning (the refreshment) of the bones and skulls (the capuzzelle) - the dead offer protection, intercession and advice on any matter, from marriage to recovery from serious illnesses, to the suggestion of numbers to play the lottery for fabulous winnings. In the large caverns dug in ancient times into the hillside to extract the tufa and which became the town's ossuary, the bodies of the victims of the plague in 1656 and then of the cholera epidemic of 1836 are laid to rest. At the end of the 19th century, a group of volunteers led by a priest (Gaetano Barbati) began to gather the human remains in neat piles around the perimeter of the cemetery, which is accessed from the 19th-century church of Maria Santissima del Carmine. A macabre and fascinating spectacle: large rooms in semi-darkness with pyramids of thousands of skulls and bones forming funereal architectural decorations, amidst sudden flashes of light at points of communication with the outside. Disturbing atmospheres, which permeate the scenes shot at the Fontanelle by Roberto Rossellini for Viaggio in Italia (1953) with Ingrid Bergman in the lead role.