In the underground belly for San Gennaro and San Gaudioso

Descending a hundred steps, one penetrates the tufa-cavernous belly of the city as one crosses the cavernous cavern of the Catacombs of San Gennaro dating back to the 2nd century AD and later enlarged in the 4th century when the remains of Saint Agrippinus, the first patron saint of Naples, were laid to rest here. Developed on two floors, the upper one consists of a large nave whose walls are hollowed out with innumerable niches, while the lower one runs like a long corridor, this underground basilica features frescoes, a large baptismal font, the bishops' crypt and, above all, the cubiculum that served as St. Gennaro's tomb, identified through the careful interpretation of a passage from the Chronicon of the Bishops of Naples. Bishop of Benevento, beheaded in Pozzuoli in 305 AD, his bones were stolen in 831 AD by the prince of the Lombards Sicone, arriving here after a troubled journey. On foot, you can then reach the Catacombs of San Gaudioso, which lie beneath the Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità, and were the second early Christian cemetery in the city. It was precisely the sacredness of the Christian figures buried in its belly that inspired the name Sanità to the district, considered protected from all evil precisely by virtue of these catacombs.