Welcome to the site Napoliforme

Attached to the sanctuary of the Madonna dell'Arco, this is a unique museum, inaugurated in 2000: it houses part of the votive heritage resulting from the centuries-old devotion of the faithful to the Madonna dell'Arco. The ex-votos, from the classic painted tablets (about seven thousand) to the most extravagant objects, are displayed in rooms organised in sections. The section devoted to paintings and tablets contains pictorial ex votos spanning four centuries, from 1500 to 1900, made using different techniques, materials and supports, from wood to paper, canvas and then glass, tin, zinc and cardboard, plywood, Masonite, majolica, silk and parchment, and 20th-century materials. The objects section and the sea section present a great variety of artefacts: from antique weapons to models of boats, sea ropes, candles, hair, hangers, tarot cards, and even gold syringes donated by former drug addicts, a symbol of one of the many contemporary evils to be averted. A precious section gathers silver and gold objects donated by the faithful from 1700 to the present day, offerings in which a codified typology has been repeated for centuries (hearts, limbs and other parts of the body), commissioned from workshops specialising in the mass production of these objects, witnesses to popular religiosity. The museum is an evocative place, representing an immaterial space of faith and life built up from the very human stories enclosed in the ex-votos offered for "grace received".