Catacombs of San Gaudioso

The Catacombs of Saint Gaudiosus are underground paleo-Christian burial sites (4th-5th century BC), located in the northern area of the city of Naples (now Stella district).

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 and since then known by St. Gaudosio name.

As said, the entire area of Rione Sanità was uninhabited and almost "forgot" throughout the Middle Ages also because of the numerous mudslides that, from above the hill of Capodimonte, flocked to the "virgin village" submerging each item they encountered in their path.

The urbanization of Rione Sanità began only around the sixteenth century and, with it, also 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 until the destruction of some of its parts.

After the outbreak of 1656, the vast limestone caves in the valley became a huge open-air graveyard and here, at the time of Joachim Murat, numerous bones from the "mummification rooms" were moved as well as victims of other epidemics such as cholera of 1836.

Nowadays, only a small portion of what were the original catacombs.

Access to the catacombs is in the crypt, under the raised presbytery of the church dedicated to Our Lady of Health. This subject is represented in a fresco pheraphs detached by a wall of the old church, due to a mud slide.

Our Lady of Health (5th – 6th century), probably the most ancient Marian representation of 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.

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Wikipedia