Ipogeo dei Cristallini

Under a nineteenth-century palazzo on Via dei Cristallini, four Hellenistic tombs carved into the tuff preserve painted façades, trompe-l'oeil decoration and carved beds, offering evidence of the funerary art of Greek Neapolis.

Why it matters

The Ipogeo dei Cristallini is one of the few sites anywhere where Hellenistic Greek painting and architecture survive together underground, about 2,300 years after they were made. The Vergini area of the Sanità district, in the valley outside the walls of Greek Neapolis, was destined for necropolis use from the 4th century BC, and the wealthy families of the Greek city cut elaborately decorated family tombs into the tuff there. The complex lay beneath a noble residence until 1889, when Baron Di Donato discovered the painted chambers while digging under his family palace. Restoration was financed through European regional funds and directed with the Naples soprintendenza and the Central Institute for Restoration in Rome.

What to notice

The four tombs have independent entrances and two levels: an upper vestibule for funerary rites and a lower burial chamber reached by stairs. Klinai, or banquet beds, are carved from the tuff with sculpted mattresses and painted cushions. The trompe-l'oeil decoration includes garlands, altars, amphorae and suspended ritual vessels. Hypogeum C is the best preserved; its back wall has a Medusa head in the lunette, while the entrance wall shows a suspended patera, a jug, two candelabra and a group of Dionysus and Ariadne. Hypogeum A preserves one of eight original bas-reliefs. Hypogeum D was adapted in the Roman period, gaining loculi, a Latin inscription and different furnishings.

Context and history

The necropolis spread across the Vergini valley, then outside the city walls along the roads towards Cumae and the Campanian interior, in a landscape the Greeks considered suitable for the dead: outside the polis, yet close to it. The Cristallini tombs belong to the mature Hellenistic phase, when families competed in reproducing the interiors of aristocratic houses underground, so that the dead would keep their status. After antiquity the valley filled in and was built over; the tombs survived as the cellar-like underbelly of Palazzo Di Donato until their 1889 rediscovery. Modern restoration returned the painted surfaces to legibility. Finds associated with the burials include artefacts and vases; some objects from the tombs entered the National Archaeological Museum. The museum has presented a virtual reconstruction of the tomb colours.