Destinations · Italy · Naples
Chapel
Cappella Sansevero
The alchemist prince's chapel, and a marble veil that refuses to read as stone.
Commissioned by Raimondo di Sangro — nobleman, scientist and reputed alchemist — the chapel holds Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ, carved so that the shroud reads as cloth rather than marble, and it generated centuries of legend for exactly that reason. Below, the anatomical machines are a colder kind of strange.
The room is small and demand is not seasonal. Spontaneous visits do not work here: without a ticket bought well ahead, this is not part of your day.