Cappella Sansevero

The Cappella Sansevero is a baroque funerary chapel in the center of Naples, founded in 1593 as the mausoleum of the di Sangro noble family. Its centerpiece is Giuseppe Sanmartino's „Veiled Christ" (1753), a life-size marble figure shrouded in a translucent veil carved from a single block of stone — a technical feat that remains one of the most studied works of 18th-century sculpture. The chapel was the obsessive creation of Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero (1710–1771), an inventor, Freemason, and self-styled alchemist rumored by contemporaries to have conducted arcane experiments on human subjects. The basement holds two so-called anatomical machines: human skeletons with intact metallic vascular systems of uncertain origin, still defying straightforward explanation. Open Wednesday through Monday, 9 am to 7 pm; advance tickets are strongly advisable given strictly limited entry numbers.