Saints and Heroes

The history of Naples is full of beliefs and superstitions, of worships and traditions, since its foundation. A city where the sacred is mixed with the profane, where the people tend to entrust their fate to Saints or magical objects. Many are the sacred figures venerated, but the figure of the Patron Saint San Gennaro is central to Neapolitan beliefs. The people found in Saint Gennaro its protector, and his cult is focused on the miracle of the blood: the city anxiously awaits the liquefaction of his blood, stored in an ampoule. Its liquefaction it is considered of good auspicious fort the whole city. His remains are kept in the catacomb of San Gennaro.
In the history of the city people have been linked to cults of various kinds, linked to the belief of its population, such as the cult of the “Anime Pezzentelle” (or souls of purgatory), born after the plague of the ‘600 based on the mystification of human skulls, considered by the people kind of amulets. The people pray for the skulls, to which it was given dwelling and favors were requested. If the wish was granted, a gift was made to the skull. Skulls were the remains of poor people who died during the plague. Churches like Santa Luciella still host skulls. The cult is still practiced by few people.
In Naples often also the most common people can be venerated as a sacred figures, such as the Argentinian soccer legend Diego Armando Maradona, considered in Naples a popular hero, or a sort of Saint, even a God, especially after his death. All these figures are shownin St Gregory Armeno street, a street famous for the ceramic artsince the time of Magna Graecia, when the street housed a temple dedicated to the goddess Ceres, to whom ceramic statuettes were offered as a gift. Today the artisans of the street are famous for the cribs and for the creation of statuettes of the most varied characters. The street is the pure example of mixing of all these figure, sacred and profane, such as San Gennaro, Virgin Mary, Maradona, Totò and many other a city where the sacred and the profane often mix, in a city where full of legends and beliefs.