The grand master of a Masonic lodge, an accomplished alchemist and necromancer, erects a Catholic temple that is actually filled with occult symbols and sinister artifacts, eternally illuminated by mysterious lamps that dispense perpetual light. It seems like the plot of a Steven Spielberg saga, and, in fact, it has already inspired some historical novels.
The Sansevero chapel, in Naples, receives more than seven hundred thousand visitors a year, attracted, in part, by the beauty of its sculptures, among which the spectacular Veiled Christ by Giuseppe Sanmartino stands out, and also in part, by the legend that surrounds this sanctuary, today desecrated. Of course, there was nothing supernatural in its construction, except for the almost superhuman energy of the man who devised and financed this masterpiece, halfway between Baroque and Neoclassicism: Prince Raimondo di Sangro.
Although there is no evidence to support it, the chapel is said to have been built on the ruins of a temple dedicated to Isis. According to another no less dubious story, an unjustly convicted prisoner managed to prove his innocence thanks to the appearance of an image of the Virgin Mary after the wall of the gardens of the Sansevero palace, belonging to the Di Sangro family, collapsed. Years later, Duke Giovan Francesco di Sangro would have recovered from a serious illness after praying to the same Madonna.
More credible, unfortunately, is the hypothesis defended by the historian Beatrice Cecaro. In the early hours of October 16 to 17, 1590, the composer Carlo Gesualdo murdered her wife, María de Ávalos, and her lover, Fabrizio Carafa, whom he caught red-handed. She was the mother of the deceased Fabrizio, who was remarried to a Di Sangro, who, broken with grief, ordered the construction of an expiatory chapel next to the palace, dedicated to piety, presided over by a small painting of the Virgin holding in her arms the corpse of Jesus. Hence the Sansevero chapel is also called the Pietatella, or “little piety”.
The Pietatella will be one of the few pieces of the original chapel respected by Raimondo di Sangro, seventh prince of Sansevero, a character who enters the scene in the mid-18th century, determined to convert the small family chapel into a pharaonic mausoleum. Although he is far from practicing black magic, as some of his contemporaries suspect, Raimondo is no ordinary man. Dilettante, enterprising, creative, all kinds of inventions are attributed to him: a harquebus that could fire with both gunpowder and compressed air, a light cannon, an amphibious chariot, which navigated with rotating oars, waxes and silks of vegetable origin, a printing press. capable of printing in four colors, artificial rhinestones, whistling pyrotechnics, hydraulic devices, musical clocks, removable stages…
Not all the artifacts of this Da Vinci of the Enlightenment were really practical. The prince also boasted of some more than improbable achievements, such as the development of miraculous medicines, artificial blood or charcoal capable of burning without ashes. However, the pigments that he devised to decorate the ceiling of the Sansevero chapel have demonstrated extraordinary durability.
Di Sangro’s credibility is not helped by the fact that he kept much of his formulas and techniques strictly secret. But his passion for science went hand in hand with a deep attraction towards Kabbalah, occultism and alchemy. All this is reflected in the great work of his life: the renovation and decoration of the Sansevero chapel.
In addition to paying homage to his ancestors, his firstborn, and himself, the chapel that Di Sangro designs represents a Freemason’s initiatory journey toward knowledge and revelation. For Freemasonry, God is the architect of the world. To reveal the truth of him, hidden from the uninitiated, the disciples must cultivate a series of virtues. Among them are decorum, generosity, religious zeal, marital fidelity, sincerity, self-control, education and divine love.
Each of these virtues is sculpted in marble, in sculptural groups dedicated to different ancestors of Di Sangro and endowed with complex symbology, generally related to Masonic rites and beliefs. The original floor, formed by a labyrinth of swastikas and concentric squares, also represented the hardships of the pilgrim, as well as the conjunction of terrestrial and solar forces.
In this ambitious iconographic project, the three sculptures closest to the altar shine with their own light: Modestia, by Antonio Corradini; Disillusionment, by Francesco Queirolo, and the Veiled Christ, by Giuseppe Sanmartino. All three are exercises in virtuosity so astonishing that, for years, Neapolitans murmured that they could not have been accomplished without some kind of magic or, more specifically, alchemy.
It was rumored that Raimondo di Sangro had the figures sculpted and then covered them with transparent gauze fabric or a fisherman’s net. Then he would have turned them into marble through some highly secret chemical process; for example, spreading calcium powder on them and soaking them in steam emitted at high pressure. Of course, none of this makes sense. In 2008, a scientific study showed that the Veiled Christ was carved from a single block of marble. It is still possible to see the chisel marks on its delicate workmanship.
Modesty, dedicated to Raimondo’s late mother, wears a garland of roses next to her belly, in reference to fertility, but also to the Rosicrucians, a legendary secret order related to the Freemasons. She also symbolizes nature, through whose veil Freemasons and good Christians can see, thanks to study and prayer. Disappointment represents both the believer and the man of science who frees himself from the trap of worldly illusions, embodied in the network. The veiled Christ, who in the initial project was to rest in the crypt, illuminated by the permanent lamps of Di Sangro, embodies the truth, which will be revealed to the good Mason after the pilgrimage of learning.
Raimondo left his fortune and reputation in a project that he supervised down to the last detail, to the point of prohibiting any modification to his will. But the mausoleum, splendid as it may be, was not to everyone’s liking. When his status as grand master was discovered, Raimondo attracted the wrath of the Church, which tried to sabotage the construction and banned the prince’s books as heretical. Thanks to the protection of Charles III, then king of Naples, this late Baroque jewel has survived almost intact to the present day.
This text is part of an article published in number 665 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
