The Souls of Sanità

Sanità means health. And Rione Sanità — a vibrant, historically rich neighborhood — has long negotiated its relationship between the living and the dead. For 2,000 years the district was defined by burial: Greek-Roman necropolis, early Christian catacombs, and — in recent centuries — folk devotions in which the anonymous dead were cared for by strangers. Sara begins the walk at Fontanelle Cemetery — a tuff-stone quarry that became an ossuary in the 17th century when the Great Plague killed more than half of Naples. She tells you how the cemetery became the center of one of Naples' unique folk traditions — anime pezzentelle or 'poor souls' — and how a city under siege from plague turned a mass grave into a place of humanity. The walk continues to Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità; the flying staircases of Palazzo Sanfelice and Palazzo dello Spagnolo; and Blue Church of the Cristallini. It ends at Porta San Gennaro, Naples' oldest city gate, with its frescoed memorial to the plague.

Sanità is unlike anywhere else in Italy. It's a 3,000-year palimpsest in a few square kilometers where Greek tombs, Christian catacombs, Baroque palaces and living folk devotion sit on top of one another. And yet it's a working neighborhood, one of the liveliest in the city, whose renaissance has come from within. In 2023, Blue Church of the Cristallini reopened — painted by the neighborhood's own artists and youth as part of Sanità's ongoing rebirth. Sara's ability to connect past and present turns this walk into a human narrative. She connects the history of an area devoted to burial with the current vitality of the neighborhood above it. She brings her scholarship in Archaeology, Ancient History, Art History — but in a genuinely Neapolitan way: with humor, warmth, a sense that history is a story you tell about people, not a set of dates. What you leave with is an understanding of how Neapolitans live — with the past visibly under their feet and with the dead as more than strangers.

Sara Prossomariti is a licensed tourist guide with over a decade of experience leading visitors through Naples and the surrounding UNESCO sites. She holds degrees in Archaeology, Ancient History, and Art History from her studies in Italy and Athens, and has taken part in archaeological excavations in both countries. Sara is also a published author. She has written more than a dozen books with Newton Compton — one of Italy's largest trade publishers — on Roman history, Renaissance figures, and the great personalities of Neapolitan history. She has described herself as "a hybrid between Alberto Angela and Troisi" — the historian and the Neapolitan comedian — because she believes history should be accessible and alive rather than a recitation of dates.

Comfortable clothing and shoes for walking on cobblestones and stairs. Modest clothing (shoulders and knees covered) is advised for churches.