Basilica di San Lorenzo Maggiore — iNo machine-readable author provided. Inviaggiocommons assumed (based on copyright claims). (Public domain)

Ready-made walk · Naples

Skulls, Saints and the Nile God

5 stops · ~2 hr 45 min · 765 m

Weird & Unusual

A short walk through the macabre and mysterious side of the centro storico. See the marble veils and Masonic symbols of Cappella Sansevero, the headless-when-found statue of the Nile god, the crypt of Santa Luciella with its famous skull with ears, the ancient market beneath San Lorenzo Maggiore and the winged skulls of Purgatorio ad Arco.

The stops, in walking order

iNo machine-readable author provided. Inviaggiocommons assumed (based on copyright claims). (Public domain)
Stop 1: Basilica di San Lorenzo Maggiore
~15 min here
San Lorenzo Maggiore is a church and monastery, and beneath it lies the excavated ancient market of Naples.
iLalupa (Public domain)
Stop 2: Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco
~15 min here
Purgatorio ad Arco is a church devoted to prayer for souls in purgatory, built by Giovanni Cola di Franco and consecrated in 1638.
iDavid Sivyer (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Stop 3: Cappella Sansevero
~1 hr here
Cappella Sansevero is a chapel devoted more formally to Santa Maria della Pietà, and it holds an extraordinary collection of eighteenth-century sculpture and painting.
ihu:user:Istvánka (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Stop 4: Statua del dio Nilo
~3 min here
The Statue of the Nile God is the marble figure resting on a wave-shaped support in Piazzetta Nilo.
iBaku (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Stop 5: Chiesa di Santa Luciella a San Biagio dei Librai
~1 hr here
Santa Luciella is a compact historic church dedicated to Saint Lucia, tucked along the street of the booksellers in Naples.