CIMITERO DELLE FONTANELLE

The plague of 1656 was a dramatic episode for Naples: of the city's 450,000 inhabitants, 250,000 perished. Thousands of corpses were piled up in ossuaries outside the city walls and the 'o campusanto d'e Funtanelle (in Neapolitan), consisting of three large tufa cellars, housed many corpses. In 1857, a canon, with the help of the ladies of the neighbourhood, set up the premises and the ossuary was opened to the public, giving rise to a strange cult: that of the "adoption" of the anonymous skull of one of those lost souls who, deprived of a dignified burial, wandered around in purgatory. Through this "sponsorship", flowers and rosaries are brought to her skull in the hope that the soul thus honoured will intercede on her behalf in the Beyond. In 1969, the Vatican banned this cult, which it disapproved of because of its un-Catholic character (and also because it kept the faithful away from the churches!). The cemetery was then closed, only to reopen in the 1990s.

One cannot remain insensitive to the atmosphere emanating from these unique places in the world. The bones are lined up, sometimes arranged in small kiosks. But this is only the tip of the iceberg: under visitors' feet, 3 to 4 m of bones are piled up. The skull cult is still very much alive and the guardians sometimes see visitors coming back years later to thank them for a wish that has been granted. Are you going to adopt a skull during your visit?