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The cappella Sansevero was founded in 1590, when Giovanni Francesco Sangro wanted to pay a votive offering by posing the first stone of a chapel in the garden corner of his palace.
His son Alessandro decided to enlarge the building in 1608; these works went on until 1613.
From then on, according to the will of Alessandro himself, the chapel was chosen as burial-place of the family members.
During almost all the Seventeenth century, the funerary monuments and the polychrome marbles chosen for the decoration of the chapel were made; unfortunately, not much of the decorative works made in the Seventeenth century has been preserved.
The rich and variegated decorative array matches with a simple architectonic space, made by one rectangular nave with four big archs in every side and a short presbytery. Within the big archs there are the short chapels; this pattern finds an element of exception in the third arch: there is on the left the side entrance towards via Raimondo de' Sangro, and on the right there is the narrow entrance to a round underground cavea and to the small sacristy.
The definitive shape of the chapel was found in the following century, thanks to the uncommon mind of the prince Raimondo di Sangro. Still today, visiting the chapel you can feel that the decorative array of the Pietatella has a stylish and project unity, as the prince planned. Raimondo di Sangro decided indeed how to arrange the statues decorations, the theme of every allegory and painting, the choice of the materials and of the artists who had to make the works.
In 1749 Francesco Maria Russo was called to create the decoration of the barrel vault; he painted the Glory of Paradise and on the plumes the images of Six Saints of the family; the moulding, which was underneath the cornice, was decorated with six medallions: here yuo can admire the scuptures of the Cardinals of Sangro house, made by Francesco Queirolo. Both the painted figures and those in the medallions are fixed in expressions which stress their virtues.
The aim to create an harmonious organism let the prince decide to assign the decoration works to just one sculptor; he chose the artist Antonio Corradini, from the Veneto region who worked for the Emperor Charles VI. He was called by the prince of Sansevero when he was already old. Corradini made almost all the models and fired clay sketches; but he was able to make just few sculptures. Every work he made is strongly characterized by the taste of Raimondo di Sangro, who suggested him the iconographic elements and themes. Among the works by Corradini, let's remember the Pudicizia (Modesty), (completely veiled, except her hands and feet) which is on the left of the presbytery on a basement with the Noli me Tangere by Corradini; the Pudicizia was commissioned by Raimondo to honour the memory of his mother Cecilia Gaetani dell'Aquila d'Aragona, who died young. After the death of Corradini (1752) the sculptor Francesco Queirolo from Genua came to Naples.
He was younger than Corradini and studied mostly in the Roman sphere; he was given the direction of the works in the Cappella Sansevero and basically he followed the project scheme of his predecessor.
Queirolo made the sculptures of Santa Rosalia and of Sant'Odorisio, placed one in front of the other respectively on the right and on the left of the last chapels.
Queirolo masterpiece is the virtuosic Disinganno (Disillusionment), work of art dedicated to Antonio de' Sangro, who was Raimondo's father. The Disinganno is on a basement with the figure of Christ who gives the sight to a blind man; in this sculpture Queirolo creates a refined and unbelievable fretwork of the net; the net represents the process of freedom of mankind, thanks to the intervention of a genie, who symbolizes the will of rebirth. This sculpure is placed in front of the Pudicizia by Corradini.
Because of a progressive bad relationship between the prince and Queirolo, after 1759 the decoration works of the chapel were given to neapolitan artists. Francesco Celebrano made the relief of the high altar with the Deposition and the monument to Cecco de' Sangro (1766), placed on the main entrance. Cecco de' Sangro is here represented in the act of going out his grave with a sword in hand. The two angels that are on the sides of the high altar were made by Paolo Persico, as the Soavità del giogo maritale (Sweetness of the marital yoke) too. The only two paintings of the chapel were made by Carlo Amalfi; they are the Portrait of Raimondo di Sangro (1759) and the Portrait of Vincenzo de' Sangro (1771), son of the prince.
The still young Giuseppe Sanmartino made the sculpture of the so called Cristo velato (Veiled Christ), (1753) that represents his only signed work. This sculpture, considered the most beautiful sculture of the neapolitan Settecento, was inspired by a Corradini fired clay model; even if Sanmartino did not change the composition,he created new effects of light and shade, giving the Christ an uncommon expressive strenght.
Among the large number of fans of this work, there was also the sculptor Antonio Canova.
Before ending the description of the cappella Sansevero, it is worth reminding that in the underground cavea two anatomical structures (representing a man and a woman) are preserved. They show the circulatory system and the inner organs on real skeletons; as they appear so real, they contribute to increase the mystery that until today has been wrapping the figure of the prince .