Complesso Museale Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco — Attraction in Naples

A walk into the soul(s) of Naples.

This church is dedicated to the souls of the otherwise abandoned and unloved who linger in Purgatory before being permitted entry to Heaven. To speed up the process, adherents to this belief would adopt an anonymous skull from amongst those scattered in the charnel houses, clean it, set it in a niche, and pray for the skull's onetime owner's swift ascension to Paradise. In return, they would ask that soul to intercede similarly on their own behalf with God and His saints.

The church itself is small but beautifully decorated, with skulls a repeating motif. You can enter the nave for free, but for the whole experience a small entry fee takes you downstairs to where the skulls sit, still cared for and surrounded with gifts and offerings as well as requests for intercessions and photographs of loved ones for whom help is asked. At the heart of this area lie several bodies in shallow earth graves; traditionally, this would allow them to dry out before being disinterred, their bones cleaned and placed reverently elsewhere. Whether the bodies there today are part of an ongoing process or relicts of earlier times I have not been able to find out.

Eerie? Gruesome? Macabre? In our era of the clinicisation of death, perhaps, but it speaks powerfully of times when death was all around, physically and spiritually, and the worlds of the living and dead remained closely intertwined. I found the earth grave area spooky but deeply moving at the same time, while the care shown to the anonymous dead reminded me strongly of the shock of seeing the skeletons at Herculaneum and realising that these were the same people who walked, are, drank and made love in the rooms of the ancient city above, not just abstract ideas.

For me, a must see. Just treat it with respect; it's a place of reverence, burial, and prayer, not a freak show. It's refreshingly free of barriers, notices, and "do not touch" signs, as Neapolitans and others continue to care for and leave offerings by the skulls, but it will take the continued respect of visitors to keep...

This church was built on 17th century, by the Brotherhood of purgatory souls. In neapolitan folklore the souls of people died Who doesnt went to hell are kept for several years in purgatory One thing that shorten this staying Is ti receive prayers from living people. According to this believe death people compensate prayers with gift in form of lottery Win, Money found or healing from ill; in naples we call this souls : anime pezzentelle ( beggars souls ), infact many skulls are adopted by Citizen of city to receive grace or dream dead people Who fave Money to play lottery and win. Apart of it the church Is a wonderful piece of barocco neapolitan and both has a gothic and macabre attractive. The Lost facade was made by the great architect Cosimo Fanzago, insider we May enjoy watching precious marble decorations as paintings made by artisti such Luca Giordano. Don't forget to go in the crypt to Watch the skulls prayed for centuries...

La Chiesa, dedicata al culto delle anime del Purgatorio e detta "ad arco" per la presenza di una struttura medioevale poi rimossa, venne consacrata nel 1638. L'architetto Giovan Cola di Franco, cui spetta l'originario progetto, la concepì su due livelli: la chiesa superiore rimanda alla dimensione terrena, mentre l'ipogeo diventa una concreta rappresentazione del Purgatorio. La cura delle anime del Purgatorio era uno dei punti principali delle pratiche religiose proposte dalla nuova chiesa controriformata e tutto l'apparato decorativo del complesso venne ideato per ricordare, a passanti e fedeli, che le anime attendevano una preghiera in suffragio per potersi liberare dal fuoco del Purgatorio e ascendere in Paradiso. La facciata, la decorazione della chiesa e della sacrestia, gli arredi liturgici, ogni cosa rimanda al tema del Purgatorio e alla necessità di ricordare che ognuno, prima o poi, deve lasciare questa terra. La chiesa divenne ben presto sede di una vera e propria processione di fedeli che chiedevano che venisse recitata una messa per le anime, tanto che si arrivò a celebrarne fino a 60 al giorno! L'intero programma iconografico è dedicato al tema del trapasso, attraverso testimonianze del Seicento: il Transito di san Giuseppe (1650-51) di Andrea Vaccaro, la Morte o Estasi di santAlessio, capolavoro giovanile (1661) di Luca Giordano e, so-prattutto, nella sua straordinaria teatralità tutta barocca, la decorazione del presbiterio (1651-69). La chiesa, il Museo dell'Opera e il celebre Ipogeo, sede del culto spontaneo e ancora vivo delle "anime pezzentelle", sono una testimonianza unica della rappresentazione di un legame tra i vivi e i morti, peculiare della cultura na-poletana. La visita al Complesso consente, attraverso preziose testimonianze d'arte, documenti, paramenti, arredi liturgici e, soprattutto, attraverso l'impressionante ipogeo, di rivivere un pezzo di storia, di cogliere il fascino di un culto che è ancora adesso vivo nel...