Catacombs of Saint Gaudiosus
The Catacombs of Saint Gaudiosus are underground paleo-Christian burial sites (4th–5th century AD), located in the northern area of the city of Naples (now Stella district).
Saint Gaudiosus of Naples or Gaudiosus the African (Latin: Sanctus Gaudiosus Africanus) was a bishop of Abitina (Abitine, Abitinia; Abitinae article) in Africa Province during the 5th century AD Abitina was a village near Carthage in present-day western Tunisia. Born Septimius Celius Gaudiosus, he fled North Africa during the persecutions of Genseric, king of the Vandals, in a leaky boat and arrived at Naples with other exiled churchmen, including the bishop of Carthage, who was named Quodvultdeus. Arriving around 439 AD, he established himself on the acropolis of Naples. The introduction of the Augustinian Rule into Naples is attributed to him as well as the introduction of some relics, including those of Saint Restituta. Gaudiosus’ relics were later buried in the Catacombs of San Gennaro in the 6th century. One of the cemeteries of these catacombs, San Gaudioso, refers to Gaudiosus.
- napoli.com – Around Naples
- San Gaudioso di Abitine
- The Augustinian Rule, developed by Augustine of Hippo (354–430), governs chastity, poverty, obedience, detachment from the world, the apportionment of labour, the inferiors, fraternal charity, prayer in common, fasting and abstinence proportionate to the strength of the individual, care of the sick, silence and reading during meals. It came into use on a wide scale from the twelfth century onwards and continues to be employed today by many orders, including the Dominicans, Servites, Mercederians, Norbertines, and Augustinians.
- Saint Restituta (Santa Restituta of Africa; died in AD 255 or 304) is a Berber saint and martyr of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. She was said to have been born in Carthage or Teniza (presently Ras Djebel, Tunisia) and martyred under Roman Emperor Diocletian. The location and date of her martyrdom are not precisely known. She sometimes is considered one of the Martyrs of Abitinae, Roman Province of Africa, a group of North Africans including St. Dativus, St. Saturninus, et alia, who were martyred in AD 304.A later medieval legend, recounted by Pietro Suddiacono in the 10th century and similar to legends associated with Saints Devota, Reparata, and Torpes of Pisa, states that after being horribly tortured, Restituta was placed in a blazing boat loaded with oakum and resin. Restituta was unharmed by the fire, and asked for aid from God. God sent an angel to guide her boat to the island of Aenaria (present-day Ischia), and she landed at the present-day site of San Montano. The legend further states that a local Christian woman named Lucina had dreamt of the angel and the boat. When she walked to the beach, she found the resplendent and incorrupt body of Restituta, who was now dead. Lucina gathered the population together and the saint was solemnly buried at the foot of Monte Vico in Lacco Ameno, where a paleochristian basilica was dedicated to her, and is now the site of a sanctuary dedicated to her. However, the spread of her cult from North Africa to Italy is historically associated with the expulsion of Catholics from North Africa by Genseric, king of the Vandals, who followed the Arian sect. Her relics may have been brought to Naples in the fifth century by Gaudiosus of Naples when he was exiled from North Africa.
History
The catacombs were probably occupied on a pre-existing Greek-Roman necropolis in the district known nowadays as Rione Sanità, that was uninhabited at that time. According to tradition, it was the burial site of St Gaudiosus, a bishop arrived in Naples from North Africa, due to a shipwreck.
His burial took place between 451 and 453 and the place, although was already the tomb of another bishop, St Nostriano, became an object of veneration.
The entire area of Rione Sanità was uninhabited throughout the Middle Ages because of the numerous mudslides from the hill of Capodimonte which buried the area. The urbanisation of Rione Sanità began only around the sixteenth century and the catacombs returned to their original burial function. During the seventeenth century, with the construction of the basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità just above the ancient church or chapel of St Gaudioso, the underground cemetery was “modernized” with profound changes in its original structure and the destruction of some of it.
After the outbreak of plague in 1656, the vast limestone caves in the valley became a huge open-air graveyard, and in the early 19th-century at the time of Joachim Murat, numerous bones from the “mummification rooms” were moved as well as later to make space for victims of other epidemics, such as cholera of 1836.
Nowadays, only a small portion remains of the original catacombs.
Description
Access to the catacombs is in the crypt, under the raised presbytery of the church of Santa Maria della Sanità. Her depiction is represented in a faint paleochristian fresco detached by a wall of the old church, due to a mud slide.
The icon of the Lady of Health (Santa Maria della Sanità) venerated since the 5th – 6th century, the most ancient Marian icon in Naples, is now kept in the first right side chapel of the basilica. Many inhabitants of the neighborhood, however, believe that the church is dedicated to St. Vincent Ferrer, because of the popular devotion to this holy Dominican and of the beautiful wooden statue of him, placed at the left of the altar. I’m disappointed the ‘most ancient Marian icon in Naples’ is not featured on this page or most others. I did find the dude. What on earth?
The crypt, once a long corridor catacomb, clearly contains on the vault and on the walls, visible frescoes by Bernardino Fera representing stories of martyrs. The arcosolium, placed at the entrance, guards the Tomb of San Gaudioso, with a sixth-century mosaic decoration.
In the various cubicles that open along the arms of the catacombs, were located 5th – 6th century frescoes (St. Peter, among others, and San Sossio, deacon of Pozzuoli) and a mosaic dating before the late 5th century. The tufa sculpture of the dead Christ to the left of the entrance dates back at the end of the 17th century. The 17th century was for the catacombs a new period of use, especially by the Dominican friars. In this era it was, in fact, still widespread the use of the drainers: stone cavities in which corpse were leaned into a fetal position, to make them lose the fluids.
The Dominican friars thought that the head was the most important part of the body as the seat of thoughts; that way, after drying, the heads were preserved, while the rest of the body was amassed in the charnel house.
During this period was also exercised a macabre practice to take the heads of the now dried corpses and lock them in the walls and painting below a body that would give some indication of the profession of the deceased. This type of burial was reserved for the wealthy classes and was later abandoned due to hygienic reasons.
The official travel website discusses this in Italian which translates to:
The rite of schooling
The burial of nobles and clergymen involved the practice of sculatura . The draining was the procedure by which the corpses were placed in niches so as to make them lose their liquids. This process took place in small cavities called seditoi, drainers or in Neapolitan cantarelle , from the Greek canthàrus , for the vase placed under the deceased, which had the function of collecting the cadaveric fluids. Once the process was concluded, the bones were washed and placed in their final burial. This macabre task was carried out by a figure called a schiattamuorto .
A famous curse derives from the rite
“Puozze sculà!”, i.e. “May you school”, to die.
The Official Site of the Catacombs of Naples
I’m not sure that translation is correct but given the bad education category, I’ll leave it. It was an auto-translation. Other sites say the translation is “may your life drain away” or “may you melt and pour” …it’s a maybe because there is some connection to tutor and tut and tout and all those damn fish…*tere-
The profession of the deadbeat
The deadbeater had the task of placing the corpses to drain, taking care to make holes on the bodies in order to favor the drying process. Today, although the duties have changed, the undertaker is still called schiattamuorto. The rooms of the catacombs, however large, were in any case cramped and unhealthy, due to the drainage. Among the few openings in the Catacombs of San Gaudioso there were trapdoors that led into the crypt, but they were only opened during the funeral of the deceased who would then be placed in the drains. For this reason, the schiattamuorti worked in dramatic hygienic conditions, inevitably destined to fall ill. Also not sure that translation is correct but it seems appropriate so…
Among those who received such burials were:
- Donna Sveva Gesualda (1611)[1] – princess of Montesarchio, mother of Maria d’Avalos
- Lady Caraccia della Cerenzia (1618)[2]
- Marco Antonio d’Aponte (also spelled de Ponte) (1624)[3] – marquis of Sant’Angelo, president/judge of the Royal Council,[4][3] member of the Council of Italy[5]
- Giovanni Balducci (~1630) – painter
- Diego Longobardo (1632) – magistrate[6]
- Alessandro d’Afflitto (1635)[7]
- Captain Scipione Brancaccio – baron of Alfano,[8] Spanish army officer; fought at the Battle of White Mountain[9]
- Maria de Ponte – noblewoman[10]
- Sveva Gesualda, 1611
- Unknown woman (left) and Caraccia della Cerenzia, 1618 (right)
- Marco Antonio d’Aponte, 1624, (left) and Scipione Brancaccio (right)
_10.jpg){kind=link}
_08.jpg){kind=link}
_09.jpg){kind=link}
The burial practice was banned in 1637 due to concerns over the condition of the catacombs.
- “Travel to the Unknown Part of Naples, Italy || Catacombs of San Gennaro & San Gaudioso”. www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2022-05-15 – via YouTube.
Curiosities
The dead were buried in small openings in the walls but only the skulls survived due to the fact that the surface had been deteriorated by the humidity. Most of that skullcaps are smaller than modern human ones.
The Neapolitan actor Antonio De Curtis, known as Totò, was a native of the Rione Sanità and he was used to frequent its catacombs where there is a fresco representing the victory of Death. This image has probably inspired Toto’s poem “A’ livella”.
By the late twentieth century, the Dominican cloister adjacent to the Basilica had become an inn that sponsors visits to the catacombs of San Gaudioso and San Gennaro. It is advisable to bring a flashlight.
Gallery
See also
References
- Modestino, Carmine (1863). Della dimora di Torquato Tasso in Napoli negli anni 1588, 1592, 1594: discorso i , ii (in Italian).
- The Catacombs of San Gaudioso under The Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità. – Naples Italy – ECTV, retrieved 2022-05-17
- de), Fortis (Filippo (1755). Governo politico del giureconsulto d. Filippo de Fortis . (in Italian). per Domenico Roselli.
- Brandolino, Thomaso (1642). Discorso del Advocato Fiscale della Vicaria per seruitio di Sua Maestà e defensione della giurisdittione di quel Tribunale [in the case of Vincenzo Laurino, accused of homicide] (in Italian).
- Amabile, Luigi (1882). Fra Tommaso Campanella, la sua congiura, i suoi processi e la sua pazzia, con 67 poesie di fra Tommaso finoggi ignorate (in Italian).
- “Basilica di Santa Maria della Sanita – Napoli”. www.portanapoli.com. Retrieved 2022-05-17.
- “Travel to the Unknown Part of Naples, Italy || Catacombs of San Gennaro & San Gaudioso”. www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2022-05-15 – via YouTube.
- Chiesa, baroni e popolo nel Cilento, 2 voll (in Italian). Ed. di Storia e Letteratura.
- Sessa.), Raffaelle Maria Filamondo (Bishop of (1694). Il Genio bellicoso di Napoli; memorie istoriche d’alcuni capitani celebri Napolitani, c’han militato per la Fede, per lo Ré, per la Patria nel secolo corrente … Abbellite con cinquantasei ritratti (in Italian).
- “Donna Sveva Gesualda e Maria de Ponte. XVII sec. d.C. Catacombe di San Gaudioso”. Google Arts & Culture (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-05-17.
- napoli.com – Around Naples
- San Gaudioso di Abitine
Bibliography
- (2001). Guida d’Italia, Napoli e dintorni. Milano: Touring Club Italiano, (6ª ed.). ISBN 8836519547
- Avilio, Carlo (2009). “La catacomba di San Gaudioso. Le radici sotterranee della cristianità disegnano nuove prospettive per il quartiere della Sanità”, in Varriale Roberta (curated by), I sottosuoli napoletani, pp. 91–101. ISBN 978-8880801030.
External links
- Official website
- The Official Site of the Catacombs of Naples
- Gaudiosus of Naples
- (in Italian) San Gaudioso di Abitine
| Archaeological sites in Campania |
|---|
Leave a Reply