Italian hotel owner Alessandra Calise Martuscelli is fulfilling her dream to help improve her city of birth, Naples, by restoring a rare part of the city’s ancient Greek heritage. Around 600 B.C., the Greeks founded Naples as Neapolis (New City).
In 1889, Baron Giovanni di Donato (an ancestor of her husband, Giampiero Martuscelli) discovered a 2,300-year-old necropolis 40 feet under his palace while workers were digging for water or tuff, which is a volcanic rock used for building materials. Giampiero inherited that site, called the Ipogeo dei Cristallini.
“Ipogeo,” Italian for hypogeum, is an underground vault that’s normally used for burials. The director of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Paolo Giulierini, told Smithsonian Magazine that the Ipogeo dei Cristallini is similar to the painted tombs found in Macedonia, home of Alexander the Great, and that the tombs were probably commissioned from Macedonians for the Neapolitan elite.
The hypogeum contains four burial chambers, each with a ceremonial room for conducting funeral rites and a staircase that leads down to the chamber. Two of the burial chambers contain Hellenistic era (323 B.C.–30 B.C.) frescoes, making the archaeological site internationally important as only a few ancient Greek wall paintings exist in the world.
Hellenistic era painters used three-dimensional perspective, light and shade to create form, and the trompe l’oeil technique (French for “deceives the eye”) to render objects three-dimensionally.
“Even though this [hypogeum’s artwork] is decorative, not figurative painting, it’s very refined. So, it’s a very unusual context, a rarity, and very precious,” Federica Giacomini from the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (Central Institute for Restoration) told Smithsonian Magazine.
Preserving a Piece of Ancient Greece
The Ipogeo dei Cristallini can be found in the Sanità district in the north of Naples, an area that was once considered dangerous, and one that Martuscelli rarely visited. But dignitaries, celebrities, and experts did visit. For instance, Martuscelli’s husband showed the site to the prince of Belgium and actress Isabella Rossellini, who were each keen to see it.Martuscelli, too, had always been in awe of the hypogeum when she visited it. Visiting a tomb, you’d think you’d feel sad, she explained in a phone call. But Martuscelli felt at peace in the hypogeum. She thinks that the sense of peace she felt may be because, for many centuries, people prayed in the hypogeum’s ceremonial rooms.
She’d often ask her husband to open the hypogeum to the public. Yet at that time, experts felt it was best to keep it closed in order to preserve the site. But one Italian archaeologist’s visit changed everything. He found the burial chambers so beautiful that he declared, “I want to live here!” His enthusiasm reignited Martuscelli’s idea to open the site.
Even when Martuscelli left Naples to work in Milan and Torino, she always intended to return to help her home city. One day she shared with her husband that she wanted to return to Naples to open the hypogeum, and give back to the city she loved.
She’d never taken on such a project, but in her heart she knew that’s what she needed to do. “Art belongs to everyone,” she said in a press release. And she feels that anyone who owns art assets has a duty to make them available for others to enjoy and to understand.
Ancient Greece Under Italian Soil
The ancient Greeks believed in myths, and the burial chambers are peppered with mythological characters. Set high on the back wall of the most opulent burial chamber is a sculptural relief of a Gorgon’s head (Medusa) framed by a colorful circular fresco.
Frescoes in the entryway show a patera (a shallow dish), a jug, and two candelabra. Ancient Greeks used a jug and patera to conduct their daily libations, (ritual offerings they made to their gods or deceased loved ones). Beside one of the candelabras, there’s a small drawing of Dionysus and Ariadne, the Greek god of wine and the daughter of King Midas, respectively.
Frescoed festoons, strung between columns topped with capitals depicting mythological creatures, line the upper walls. Listed under one festoon are the names of the Greeks and Romans who were laid to rest in the burial chamber. Two plump stone pillows are set on the top of each sarcophagus, or stone coffin, and a faint frescoed blue line decorates each pillow edge.
Niches carved into the wall of one burial chamber once held urns, amphorae (pots with a pointed bottom), and altar pieces. Some of the vessels contained oil, perfume, or ointments.
All the objects in the hypogeum, around 700 in all, were removed and preserved upon the site’s discovery in the late 19th century. The objects are a mix of ancient Greek and Roman artifacts, as in Roman times some of the rooms in the hypogeum were adapted by Romans to their beliefs. There are offerings of food and terracotta statuettes, terracotta reliefs of farewell scenes, and even coins meant as offerings to Charon, whom the ancient Greeks believed would take their loved ones’ souls to the world of the dead.
Around 470 of the artifacts are on display in a room dedicated to Hellenistic era burial tombs at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli or MANN), one of the world’s most important archaeological museums. The rest of the artifacts will be displayed in the hypogeum once the restoration is complete, which could be in two years’ time.
Restoring the Hypogeum
Martuscelli has had many challenges in opening the hypogeum, but she takes it in stride. “Everything I’ve done with love, without a problem,” she said.She’s keen to point out that the project is a family one, with her husband and two children, Paolo and Sara, all pitching in. The restoration effort was partly funded by EU100,000 (around $104,000) of family money and EU200,000 (around $208,000) from the region’s European funds.
For the last two years, experts and enthusiasts have worked every day at the hypogeum, preparing it for its public opening. And now, a maximum of 25 people can visit the hypogeum daily—any more than that could disturb the fine temperature-humidity balance needed to preserve the site.
Martuscelli stresses that the purpose of publicly opening the hypogeum was not to create a business. She wants to make a sustainable social impact in her city, and a real difference to the local economy. At the moment, she employs three local guides. And, of course, she wants more people to know about this important part of Italy’s heritage.
Even though the once-hidden hypogeum has been made public, there are many secrets within the site that are still to be discovered. Human remains found onsite have been sent off for analysis. And conservators continue to restore the hypogeum so visitors can see them at work. Who knows what else will be uncovered.
To find out more about the Ipogeo dei Cristallini, visit IpogeodeiCristallini.org
