Cimitero delle Fontanelle

Where the bones came from

Naples ran out of room for its dead early. From the sixteenth century undertakers began moving skeletal remains out of overfilled churches and into a tuff quarry cave above the Sanità district. The plague of 1656 filled it further, and the cholera epidemic of the 1830s filled it again. For two centuries the result was a chaos of anonymous bone. In 1872, a priest named Gaetano Barbati had the remains cataloged and arranged, stacked on wooden racks and set into makeshift crypts, and that arrangement is broadly what a visitor walks through today. Estimates of how many people lie there circulate freely and rest on nothing anyone has published.

The adoption

What grew in the cave was the cult of the anime pezzentelle, the poor souls. A devotee chooses an anonymous skull, a capuzzella, cleans it, and waits for its name to arrive in a dream. From that point the relationship runs both ways: prayers for the soul's release from Purgatory, and in return, requests. A skull that delivers gets paid, in candles, flowers, coins, embroidered cloths, and small built shrines. Several acquired reputations and names that outlived the devotees who kept them. The same devotion is practiced at the church of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco and at Santa Luciella in the old center, which makes the Fontanelle the largest site of the practice and not the only one.

The ban, and what happened after

In 1969, Cardinal Corrado Ursi judged that the devotion had degenerated into fetishism and closed the cemetery to the public. The cult did not stop. Offerings kept appearing, and still appear, at the Fontanelle and at the smaller sites in the center. The cave itself has spent much of the last half century shut, including a closure that began in 2019, and it reopened on April 18, 2026, after restoration and safety work carried out under an arrangement between the city and the Cooperativa La Paranza, the social enterprise behind the revival of the Sanità's other underground sites.

Reopened on April 18, 2026, after restoration. Open daily from 10am to 6pm, closed Wednesdays and on December 25. Entry is timed and capacity is capped, so book online for a specific 15-minute slot; walk-up entry is not guaranteed. Residents of Naples' first and second municipalities enter free with a reservation, and the ticket carries a discount at other cultural sites in the neighborhood.

The cave stays cool and damp year-round and the floor is uneven, so bring a layer and sensible shoes. The Sanità is a dense working district reached by a steep climb from the center, and it repays the time. The offerings left at individual skulls are live devotional objects, not display pieces, so the courtesy is to photograph the space, leave everything where it sits, and give anyone praying room.