The Fontanelle cemetery was used as a burial place for the dead who found no place in churches, victims of plagues, famines and natural disasters.
Rituals, legends and tales of miracles are linked to the Fontanelle Cemetery. For a period, it became a place of deep popular worship. Inside the cemetery, the so-called rite of ‘anime pezzentelle’ (pezzentelle souls) took place: every Neapolitan would adopt and take care of a skull (called ‘capuzzella’) belonging to an abandoned soul from Purgatory, a ‘pezzentella’, and would receive protection in return.
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