Trip 2 Day 7

I woke feeling much better and with renewed energy. I found my way to the National Archeological Museum  where I saw much of the salvaged ruins from Pompeii. I spent much time wandering slowly, making use of the interesting audio tour. Still feeling a little lonely, but enjoying myself again.

After this, I wandered through Via San Gregorio Armeno. I had noticed down south, this tradition they had of what was known as the crib tradition. All these tiny nativity scenes and mini motorized figures doing all sorts of different things. I was mesmerised. There were so many and they were so amazing. I had to take one with me, even though it meant also buying an adaptor for the funny Italian power plug. Truly incredible and by far my favourite thing about Naples.

Naples was where pizza was created so for lunch, I went to one of the best restaurants and ordered pizza and stuffed zucchini flowers. It was dads birthday, so I toasted him quietly and enjoyed the food in celebration of him back home. 

Finally, I found the Museo Sansevero. This place was pretty weird. Again I opted for an audio tour and am glad I did. I was able to more fully appreciate the work of art that is the Veiled Christ statue, the general architecture of the chapel, and then the very strange and creepy anatomical machines downstairs. The fascinating story of these is as follows:

Here are the skeletons of a man and of a woman in upright position, with the artery and vein systems almost perfectly intact. The Machines were made by the doctor Giuseppe Salerno of Palermo, under the direction of Raimondo di Sangro. The discovery of notaries’ deeds and credit notes makes it possible to date these “works” to 1763-64. The two anatomical studies are the most enigmatic objects in the Sansevero Chapel. Still today, after about two-and-a-half centuries, it is still not known which procedures or materials were used to obtain such an exceptional preservation of the circulatory system. 

The Short note, an anonymous eighteenth-century guide to the Palace and the Sansevero Chapel, speaks of “injection”. It was proposed that Salerno injected a substance – perhaps based on mercury – into the two corpses. The substance would have been created in a laboratory by the Prince of Sansevero, and would allow the “metallisation” of the blood vessels. The other possibility is that the circulatory system is the fruit, in part or wholly, of reconstruction carried out using different materials, among which are beeswax and some colorant. This second case would not deprive the two Machines of their exceptional nature. It is, in fact, amazing that the arteries and veins are reproduced with remarkable realism, even the smallest vessels, despite the fact that knowledge of anatomy was not so precise. The bones and skulls are without doubt those of two real human skeletons.

These disquieting objects were kept in a room in the palace of the Prince of Sansevero, called “the Apartment of the Phoenix”, as a number of travellers and the Short note attest. This source describes the Machines in detail, from the blood vessels of the head to those of the tongue, and adds that at the feet of the women was placed “the tiny body of a foetus”, alongside which there was even the open placenta, connected to the foetus by umbilical cord. The two anatomical studies were moved to the Chapel, and in this way saved from destruction or loss, long after the death of the Prince. The remains of the foetus were still visible up to a few decades ago, until they were stolen.

After that, it was back to the hotel where I had a rooftop restaurant dinner for one - risotto and semifreddo, before my last night in Italy in the comfort of the luxurious suite.