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Today was skull day, all the way. Several locations are prime for viewing skulls from the cult of the souls in Purgatory. As outlined in my tour materials, those who could not afford a proper burial in a church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were buried in a large grave in the hypogeum, the space below the main hall of the church. The unnamed bones gave rise to the cult, who took care of the skulls and bones and prayed for a lessening of the time in Purgatory for these souls, with the idea that these souls, once in Heaven, could return the favor. I visited three of them in quick succession: Santa Maria del Purgatorio ad Arco, the catacombs di San Gaudioso in the Santa Maria della Sanità , and the Cimitero delle Fontanelle. Both Santa Marias only offer tours until roughly 10 am - 1 pm.
I visited Santa Maria del Purgatorio first, which was a location where members still actively practice. Dark dank stairs open up to a large dimly lit room with high ceilings. On the far side a large black cross is painted on the wall, and on either side are little shrines for skulls,
a taster of what lies ahead. Through a walkway in a far corner is a passage lined with individual shrines to bones and skulls, decorated and honored with rosaries, photos, and plastic sunflowers and roses. The passage continues to a room that holds a shrine for Lucia, a skull with a bridal veil and tiara, treated now as a patron of young brides. Her shrine overflows with plastic flowers, statues, rosaries, and more trinkets. The legend of Lucia is that she was a noblewoman who dies for the love of a poor man, or variations on this theme. The likely source of the skull is the daughter of a nobleman devotee of the souls of Purgatory; she died soon after her wedding. In the back of this room stands more cubbyholes for indivdual shrines, two rows along the side for earth burials, and in the front, bones on an altar along with more plastic flowers, rosaries, stuffed bears, and other little tokens.
From there I walked up to Santa Maria della Sanita, which is in a hilly area, so the north-south road I had been following was actually stories above the road below where the church entrance was. The
Skulls with houses
Cimitero delle Fontanelle tour starts in a lower level behind the altar, with ornate columns and frescos, but showing age with peeling paint and chipped tiles on the floor. In the far right corner was a narrow pathway to the catacombs where skulls used to be stored. There practitioners would imbed the skeleton into the wall, and then paint frescos around it. Often a skeleton was painted to accompany a skull. A cholera epidemic however forced the emptying of the bones to Cimitero delle Fontanelle.
Cimitero delle Fontanelle is in an understated and quiet neighbor in the hills, and I had difficulty determining the location of the cemetery but the locals including two young girls helped lead me. You just have to keep faith walking down the road until a gate on the left reveals a gapping maw. The place had a simple naturalistic spirituality. The vaulted cavern was lit by some artificial lighting but also with large elevated openings to the outside, bestowing the space with light filtered through spring green leaves. Piles of bones and skulls were orderly arranged along the walls behind barricades. Some skulls had their own houses. The place exuded care and love, if though a bit
morbid.
My new sandals at this point are killing the balls of my feet, so I look to take the metro. The nearest metro is up some stairs and down the road a few blocks. What a difference 20 meters make. What was lower key downstairs is now clearly a higher income neighborhood: clean roads, immaculately painted buildings. Despite what the metro maps suggest, that the stop near our hotel is along a extension that has yet to be built, in fact the line has been completed to our stop and is running! My feet thank me.
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