Cappella Sansevero

The Cappella Sansevero, also called the Museo Cappella Sansevero, stands on Via Francesco de Sanctis in the Centro Storico of Naples. The chapel was built in the late 16th century as a family burial place of the di Sangro princes, and it was transformed from the 1740s by Raimondo di Sangro, the seventh Prince of Sansevero, an Enlightenment aristocrat, inventor and alchemist-minded scholar. He commissioned a programme of sculpture that makes the chapel one of the most remarkable baroque interiors in Europe. The best known work is the Veiled Christ, carved in marble by Giuseppe Sanmartino in 1753, in which a translucent shroud appears to cling to the body. Other major pieces include Francesco Queirolo's Disillusion, a figure freeing himself from a net, and Antonio Corradini's Modesty, a veiled woman. The ceiling fresco by Francesco Maria Russo and the geometric floor, laid in a maze pattern, complete the scheme. In the underground chamber visitors can see two anatomical machines, human skeletons with preserved circulatory systems, which have fed legends about the prince's experiments. The architecture is a single richly decorated hall with side chapels, and the curatorial approach is intimate: visitors move around the nave looking at each monument in turn. The building has undergone several restoration campaigns, including cleaning of the marbles and the ceiling, and strict conservation rules apply, including a ban on photography. Admission is around EUR 12, and booking in advance on museosansevero.it is strongly advised because entry is timed and demand is high. The chapel is a few minutes' walk from the Duomo, the Greek walls of Piazza Bellini and Via dei Tribunali.