Church or religious building

Sanctuary of San Gennaro alla Solfatara

In popular religion, history and legend are intertwined in the figure of one of Naples' most famous patron saints: St Gennaro. The martyr, according to traditions from the 5th and 6th centuries AD, was beheaded in 305 at the Forum Vulcani (the Solfatara) with his companions Sossio, Festo, Desiderio, Procolo, Eutichete and Acuzie during the persecution of Christians at the time of Emperor Diocletian (284-305). In a small square shaded by holm oaks (past the building of the Aeronautical Academy and just before the centre of Pozzuoli) is the sanctuary dedicated to the Saint, built in 1580 on an older building together with the Capuchin convent, in memory of his martyrdom. Inside the church is the marble bust-portrait (early 14th century) and the stone that faith indicates as the one on which Gennaro was beheaded at the Solfatara, originally part of the early Christian altar of the previous basilica (6th-7th century). Still marked by faded traces of blood, at the moment when the prodigious dissolution of the blood in the ampoules in the Chapel of the Treasure of St. Gennaro took place in Naples Cathedral, the stains on the stone regained their colour. 

place
Via S. Gennaro alla Solfatara, 8 - Pozzuoli
Accessible
timer
30 Minutes
No ticket required
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