From: http://www.philipcoppens.com/sansevero.

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Phillip Coppens - The Alchemical Chapel

The Neapolitan Chapel of Sansevero is one of the most enigmatic chapels in Europe, if only
because its creator, Raimondo di Sangro, was deemed to be the Leonardo da Vinci of his
time.

Philip Coppens

The Scottish Rosslyn Chapel

– either correct or incorrectly
– is seen as the work of the
local lord, William St Clair. In
the Italian city of Naples, a
local church, the Cappella
Sansevero, is seen as the
work of the resident noble,
Raimondo di Sangro. Both
churches have been seen as
a code that is left for future
generations to be unravelled;
both churches are icons of
artistic excellence. But
whereas Rosslyn’s code is
supposedly installed to hide a
secret of history (whether it is
the Grail, Mary Magdalene,
the Templars or something
similar), Sansevero is
apparently all about alchemy
and Masonry.

Raimondo di Sangro, the

seventh Prince of Sansevero, was born in 1710. He studied at the Clementine College of Jesuits Priests in
Rome, where amongst his teachers were Carlo Spinola and Domenico Quateironi, renowned in mathematics
and hydrostatics respectively. He would not become as famous as them – instead, he would become
illustrious. The Prince spoke many European languages, as well as Arabic and Hebrew. He moved in the
highest social circles and corresponded with the greatest scientific scholars of his town. He was very much like
Leonardo da Vinci: an inventor, interested in the human body, and apparently also interested in alchemy,
though it is not always clear whether he practiced advanced science (chemistry) or alchemy – if there is a
difference.
In scientific circles, Di Sangro is known as an inventor: while still a student, he impressed his teachers with
constructing a folding stage that saved an important theatrical performance; he invented an hydraulic device
that could pump water to any height; he made an “eternal flame”; he built a carriage with wooden horses that,
driven by an internal mechanical system, could travel on both land and water; he developed a printing press
that could print different colours in a single impression. He was a friend and close aide to King Charles IV of
Naples, for whom he invented a water-proof cape to protect him from the rain while hunting. He also invented a
double-barrelled harquebus.
Like Leonardo, he had a passion for war machines. During his military command, he made a cannon out of
lightweight materials that had a longer range than the standard cannons of the time. But his intellect went
further: he did not merely invent, he was also a military strategist; he penned down a treatise on the
employment of infantry, for which he was even praised by Frederick II of Prussia.

Whereas Leonardo was claimed to be a member of various organisations

(though no proof exists for his allegiance to any), it is known that di
Sangro was a leading member of Freemasonry. He was, in fact, the head
of the Neapolitan Masonic lodge, until he was excommunicated by the
Church. Pope Benedict XIV soon revoked it. For some commentators, it
was because the Pope “realised” that the accusations of heresy against
him were the product of slander and envy from the Prince's detractors.
For others, it was purely the outcome of political pressure applied on the
pontiff.
The Masonic tradition to which di Sangro belonged was the Rite of
Memphis and Misraim. The English Freemasons had united in 1717 and
Naples entered Masonic history in 1750, under the leadership of di
Sangro. He worked with Baron Henry Theodore de Tschoudi (1724-
1769), the author of the Masonic catechism “The Flaming Star”.
Di Sangro is linked with Cagliostro, one of the most famous Masons, who
met Cavalier Luigi D’Aquino (1739-1783), who according to the tradition
was his initiator as well. Cagliostro met him in Malta in 1766 and stayed with him in Naples in 1773, to receive
the instructions which enabled him to found the Egyptian Freemasonry, in Paris, in the same year his master
passed away. But in 1790, in front of a Roman tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, Cagliostro claimed that all his
knowledge of alchemy was taught to him many years before in Naples by “a prince who had a great passion
for chemistry”. The judges did not believe him and didn’t give any weight to his words. Still, if true, this prince
must have been none other than di Sangro! Any details of the trial remain unavailable, for all transcripts from
the trial were declared secret and to this day remain locked inside the Vatican.

Cagliostro would go on to write things such as: “After having taken this grain the one who is going to
rejuvenate becomes unconscious for three hours and in convulsions he sweats and evacuates continuously.
After having come to himself and changed bed he must be fed with a pound of fat free beef and cooling herbs.
If this food makes him feel better on the following day he is given the second grain of Original Matter in a cup
of broth that besides the effect of the first grain will cause him a very strong delirious fever .He will lose the
skin, and the teeth and hair will fall out. On the following thirty-fifth day if the patient recovers his strength, he
will soak in a bath for one hour in neither cold nor hot water. On the thirty-sixth day he will have his third and
last grain of Original Matter in a glass of vintage and generous wine that will make him sleep quietly and
peacefully. Then the hair grows back, the teeth too and the skin gets healed. When he wakes up he soaks in
new aromatic bath and on the thirty-eighth day he will have a bath in plain water mixed with niter. Later on he
gets dressed and starts walking in his room, then on the thirty-ninth day, he takes ten drops of Balsam of the
Great Master along with two spoons of red wine. On the fortieth day he will leave the house, rejuvenated and
perfectly recharged”.
Cagliostro’s writing is a mixture of alchemy and modern
medicine, which in essence it was. But it is included
here for it reflects many of di Sangro’s own experiments
with chemical compounds, some of which are known to
have made him seriously ill. His aides repeatedly asked
him to stop experimenting in his cellar, as he was
bound to die from experimenting too much himself. This
was the cellar of his palace, on the San Domenico
Maggiore Square. Looking down, on the sides of the
front door at number 9, you can still see the bars of the
cellar windows which once served as the Prince’s
laboratory.

Di Sangro decided that the family’s chapel, around the

corner in the Via de Sanctis, would be his personal
legacy. The chapel sits, as mentioned, just off San
Domenico Maggiore, the Dominican church where men
like Giordano Bruno had lived. “Sansevero” is much
smaller, but in artistic value it is able to rival its neighbour.
The origins of the chapel date back to the end of the 16th century, when an innocent man was dragged to jail,
passing in front of the garden of the di Sangro Palace, where he saw a part of the garden wall crumble and an
image of the Blessed Virgin appear. The man promised to give a silver medallion to the Virgin if he was proven
innocent, which indeed happened. He kept his promise and from that moment onwards, the sacred image
became a place of many more blessings. Later, Giovan Francesco Paolo di Sangro, first Prince of Sansevero,
was very sick and went to see the Madonna, in search of a cure. This too was granted and hence he built a
small chapel, the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pieta or Pietatella. Around 1590, the chapel became the resting
place of the di Sangro family. Later, Alessandro, Patriarch of Alexandria and Archbishop of Benevento, began
modifying and transforming the chapel, before Raimondo took it to the present level of refinement.
William St Clair invited foreign artists to work on Rosslyn Chapel; Di Sangro commissioned the greatest artists
of the time, including the Venetian Corradini, as well as Queirolo and Sammartino, to sculpt statues for his
church. Like William St Clair, Raimondo did not just limit himself to commissioning the works; he also
personally selected the marble, suggested techniques and subjects for each work and decided the location of
the masterpieces. When he died in 1771, the church indeed grew into his legacy and is now seen as the centre
of Neapolitan Baroque; it is indeed believed to contain a
cryptic, Masonic message that many have tried to
unravel.

When we look at the chapel today, there is little to suggest that the church has a uniform symbolic message to
impart to the visitor. Certain features have symbolic connotations – which the guidebooks explain. Some
features have a “double entendre” that suggest di Sangro could indeed be an initiate of some intriguing
esoteric tradition, but these clues are sporadic and do not move throughout the chapel in a consistent manner
– and are sometimes contradictory.
Perhaps the reason for this is that what we see today, is not exactly how De Sangrio had imagined it to be. At
the end of the stroll through the chapel, the visitor is led down into what was meant to be a small cave. The
original plans show that this room was to be enlarged and set up for the entombment of his descendants. For
an unknown reason, the project was never completed.
On the floor is a rectangular marble slab, a visual clue that it was here that the Veiled Christ of Sanmartino was
supposed to have been placed. Instead, this extraordinary sculpture is located in the centre of the chapel
above, where it sits as the true artistic masterpiece for which most tourists come to this site. The room was
equally supposed to be illuminated by an eternal light that di Sangro had invented, but no trace of that is found
either. Instead, it harbours two glass showcases in which the skeletons of a man and a woman are visible. The
vein and artery systems of these two individuals remain perfectly intact.
To begin with the “eternal flame”: Don Raimondo reputedly made it from a skull, obtaining a mixture with a high
concentration of magnesium and phosphate that could burn for hours while consuming only a negligible
amount of material.
What about the somewhat surreal-looking skeletons? They were the
work of di Sangro and his physician Guiseppe Salerno. The woman’s
skeleton has her right arm raised and his eye balls are still intact,
almost shiny, in a truly terrified expression. But what is remarkable
are the veins and internal organs, which would be expected to
disintegrate soon after death. Instead, they remain in perfect state
centuries after their creation. Her heart is whole and you can even
see the blood vessels in her mouth. She was pregnant and in her
belly you can see the open placenta from which the umbilical cord is
spilling out and then joining the foetus. Just like his mother’s, this
unborn baby’s skull can be opened to see the complex network of
blood vessels inside. The male version of the anatomic machine has
more or less the same features, the only difference being that his
arms are not raised but rest along his trunk.
“A Brief Note on What Can be Seen in the House of the Prince of
San Severo”, published in 1766, and therefore most likely written by
the Prince himself, reads: “In the Chapel one can see two Anatomic
Machines, that is, skeletons, a male and a female, made by injection,
which because of their being complete and of their having undergone
such diligent treatment, can be said to be unique in all of Europe”. It
is believed that the veins were injected with a certain substance
which, upon entering the circulatory system, gradually blocked it up to the point of causing the death of the
subject. At that point, the substance might have “metalicized” the veins and arteries, preserving them from
decomposition. Others state that the preservation method was performed on dead bodies, but as blood no
longer travels in a dead body, we need to ask how all the veins were preserved. Equally, it is known that the
Prince must have waited for the skin and flesh to completely decompose before obtaining what he calls the
“anatomic machines”.
That is not the only problem: the hypodermic syringe that would have been necessary to make the “injection”
was officially only invented one hundred years later by a surgeon from Lyon, Carlo Gabriele Pravaz (1791-
1853). Hence, others have stated that di Sangro “merely” took a skeleton and covered it with an artificial
network of blood vessels. Some believe he used wax to create the arteries. But: tests performed on the
“machines” in the 1950s revealed that “the whole system of blood vessels, upon analysis, showed that it was
metalicized, that is they were soaked in and kept their shape by the metals settling in it”. It is also known that di
Sangro was able to compose a material similar to the substance – deemed to be blood – in the ampoule of
San Gennaro, a precious relic that Naples continues to worship each January and which is said to
miraculously liquefy during the ceremony; in fact, di Sangro did not want to underline too much that what he
had invented was identical to the relic’s substance, but “like” it. Still, how the Prince accomplished this and the
two “anatomical machines” remains a mystery.

No wonder that when people saw these skeletons, di Sangro became the subject of gossip and wild rumours.
Some people claimed that he was a sorcerer, a diabolical alchemist who ordered people to be kidnapped, so
that he could perform heinous experiments on their bodies. Others argued that he was a godless predator of
young boys who he later castrated. There were even those who said that he ordered the killing of seven
cardinals and then made the same number of chairs out of their bones and skin.
There is however truth in the story of the castrated boys. One of his hobbies was “bel canto” – singing. Di
Sangro had married Carlotta Caetani of Aragon, a relative on his mother’s side, and had five children
(Vincenzo, Paolo, Gianfrancesco, Carlotta and Rosalia), but he still enjoyed going around his many estates
looking for young boys with beautiful voices. Usually he would find them in the church choir, from which he
would “buy” them from their parents, however not, as some may think, for sexual pleasures; indeed, it seems
quite the opposite: Giuseppe Salerno castrated them, after which they would be locked up in the Conservatory
of Jesus Christ’s Poor in Naples, where they started their careers as “sopranists”.
But back to his chapel. Masons have identified the
chapel as the expression of a Masonic ideal, namely
the progression towards salvation or enlightenment. Di
Sangro illustrated this path with the graves, which
proceed, virtue by virtue, to this culmination. These
virtues include: decorum, liberality, religion, softness of
marriage, sincerity, self control, education, and divine
love. They stress that he emphasised the last two
sepulchres, modesty and disillusionment.
“Modesty” is the grave of Cecilia Gaetani, Raimondo’s
mother, represented here as a Roman vestal virgin. The
broken inscription and the crown of flowers remind us
that she died very young, while the incense burner
recalls the purification of the air. The oak stands for the
antiquity of knowledge. “Disillusionment” is dedicated to
Raimondo’s father. It shows a figure trying to free
himself from a net, which may symbolize ignorance or
sin, with the assistance of an angel, symbolising
reason.
The final sculpture, at the end of the path, is the Veiled
Christ – which originally should have been in the “cave”
below.

The Veiled Christ is one of the most renowned pieces of

art in the world. It was sculpted in 1753 and shows a
veil covering the body of the Christ. Many have
observed that in its presence, one feels one is
observing the true body of Christ. Canova, the great
sculptor of the 19th century, defined it as “an awesome work, second only, perhaps, to Michelangelo's Pieta”.
He added that he would give ten years of his life to have been its creator.
The most remarkable aspect of the piece is the veil; some believe that a veil literally “petrified”, perhaps
through a chemical process such as occurs naturally at Mother Shipton’s Cave in Knaresborough (England).
Like the statue of Disillusionment, by the Genoese sculptor Francesco Queirolo, the net completely surrounds
a statue that has already been sculpted, while nevertheless being an integral part of it. How can that be done –
sculpting underneath the tiny holes of the net, yet without breaking the net and still being able to sculpt the
body to its finest detail? In both cases, the question is how these sculptors were able to cover their works with
veils and nets made of marble, for it is clear that there is no other method of achieving the final product? To
find two such examples in one chapel suggests that it was di Sangro’s chemical mastery that may have
contributed to the solution. How? Some claim that the veils were obtained by crystallizing a base solution of
calcium hydrate or slaked lime. Supposedly, the statue was placed in a tub and covered with a wet veil (or net),
over which a diluted calcium solution was poured, before the liquid was sprayed with carbon oxide coming
from a coal burning oven. The end result is calcium carbonate, i.e. marble, which would then be joined to the
rest of the statue. But no-one has yet practically demonstrated this theory to be do-able, or the one the Prince
used.

There may be another small “anomaly” in this

Veiled Christ, as there is a slight indentation
over the nostril, as if the shroud is being sucked
in by breath – is this “dead Jesus” alive? Did di
Sangro believe that Jesus had not died on the
Cross? If so, perhaps he was not only a Mason,
but a member of another, even more
mysterious, order?
Jesus disappeared from his tomb – but he is not
alone. The Prince’s tombstone can still be seen
in the chapel. He died on March 22, 1771, “from
a sudden illness caused by his mechanic
experiments”. During the long nights he spent in his laboratory he had probably inhaled or ingested some toxic
substance, which this time had indeed become lethal. His sarcophagus, however, does not contain his body;
someone stole it. When or why is not known.
Raimondo had a plaque placed in the chapel, stating that the person who commissioned those works (i.e.
himself) was moved by a desire “to astonish, discover and teach”. He was definitely able to astonish… he
discovered and taught… but we seem to have been bad pupils.