Sansevero Chapel Museum

The Sansevero Chapel Museum is a small Baroque chapel and museum in Naples’ historic centre, at Via Francesco de Sanctis 19/21. Its central work is Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ, a life-sized marble sculpture whose finely carved covering looks like fabric. Look around the chapel, too, for symbolic sculptures, paintings and frescoes, including works known as Modesty and Disillusion. An underground room holds two anatomical models. Entry is ticketed, and booking ahead is recommended; photography is not allowed inside.

A family chapel reshaped in the Baroque period

The chapel began as a place of worship for the Sansevero family in the late sixteenth century. It later became a family mausoleum, with statues of the princes placed along the walls. Its present artistic character took shape in the eighteenth century, when Raimondo di Sangro, the seventh Prince of Sansevero, commissioned artists to decorate the building.

Di Sangro is associated with art, invention and alchemy. The works he commissioned bring sculpture, religious subjects and symbolic meaning together in a relatively small space. The result is a chapel where the family’s memorials and the artworks are part of the same setting.

The Veiled Christ and other sculptures

Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ stands at the centre of attention. The sculpture shows Christ’s body beneath a marble veil, carved so finely that the stone appears light and translucent. Its effect depends on close looking: the folds, contours and details of the figure are all rendered in marble.

Other notable works include Antonio Corradini’s Modesty and Francesco Queirolo’s Disillusion. Both are among the chapel’s allegorical sculptures, where the human figure and its covering carry symbolic meaning. Take time to look beyond the central statue to the other works around the chapel. Paintings and frescoes add colour to the sculptures; the ceiling fresco by Francesco Maria Russo dates to 1749.