#naples
Ingrid Bergman takes a photograph in a break from filming ‘Visit To Italy’, in Naples. 30th May 1953
Photo by Bert Hardy
The Sisterhood of the skulls.
Excerpt from Morbid Anatomys blogspot (link below) on The Fontanelle, The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead.
“In this vast underground ossuary you will find, among the usual piles of bones, tiny stuctures–some with text engraved, others draped in rosaries and embellished with prayer cards–enshrining chosen skeletal bits. To the uninitiated, their meanings are unclear.One invaluable source in trying to decipher the meaning here was the work of author/scholar/photographer Paul Koudounaris of Empire of Death fame; he explains the cult thusly in his Fortean Times article “Sisterhood of the Skulls” (excerpted below; click here to read article in its entirety):
“…One of [Naples’] greatest enigmas was a strange cult, composed almost exclusively of elderly women who communed with the dead, lavishing their attention on, and even making offerings to, human skulls.
The cult was centred on a cemetery known as the Fontanelle… A curious cult dedicated to the remains began to evolve around the site, especially after 1872. In that year, Father Gaetano Barbati had large deposits of bones exhumed, and the skulls were cleaned and placed on racks or in troughs, where they took on the role of devotional items for this death-obsessed group. There was no formal organisation to this cult, but it rapidly grew popular with older women, especially widows or those with little or no family. They claimed to receive messages from the deceased in their dreams, and would then “adopt” whichever skull they believed had belonged to the spirit that had contacted them, becoming in effect a kind of caretaker of not just the remains but also the soul of the dead person. They would clean and care for their skulls, even constructing engraved marble shrines for them. These boxes might enclose a single skull, or multiples if the same person adopted more than one. “ ”
Read the whole thing here: bit.ly/WAJDsO
fontanelle007.jpgvon Morbid Anatomy
Über Flickr:
Cimitero delle Fontanelle and “The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead” or “The Neapolitan Skull Cult” of Naples, Italy;
fontanelle019.jpgvon Morbid Anatomy
via Flickr:
Cimitero delle Fontanelle and “The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead” or “The Neapolitan Skull Cult” of Naples, Italy; Full story on Morbid Anatomy here: bit.ly/WAJDsO
fontanelle020.jpgvon Morbid Anatomy
posted on Flickr:
Cimitero delle Fontanelle and “The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead” or “The Neapolitan Skull Cult” of Naples, Italy; Full story on Morbid Anatomy here: bit.ly/WAJDsO
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Church of Santi Severino e Sossio, Naples. The State Archives of Naples are housed in the cloisters of the church.
> Photo: Fabio Cappello, from the series “Pieni spazi vuoti”
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Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Patricia of Constantinople. Ink illustration by Matthew Alderman, December 2014; original in private collection, Singapore. For more illustrations and art, visit matthewalderman.com.
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This pattern left me puzzled #labirinth #cappellasansevero #napoli #naples #opticalillusion
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