L’area a giardino del Parco e Tomba di Virgilio ospita monumenti rilevanti per la storia dell’area partenopea e la sua denominazione ha origine dall’attribuzione al poeta Publio Virgilio Marone (Andes, 70 a.C. – Brindisi, 19 a.C.) del sepolcro romano ivi ubicato. Tale interpretazione fu ufficialmente ribadita con l’inaugurazione del parco avvenuta nel 1930, dopo un consistente intervento di risanamento e consolidamento che diede all’area la fisionomia ancora oggi osservabile, ricca di scorci paesaggistici molto interessanti.
At the entrance of the park, taking the avenue that ascends with several ramps along the hillside, there is an imposing small shrine placed there in 1668 by the viceroy Pietro d’Aragona, containing two inscriptions that also recall the presence of Virgil’s tomb. Nearby, in a large niche on the wall, there is a bust of Virgil on a column, a tribute in 1931 from the students of the Ohio Academy. At the end of the second ramp, on a right-hand square, is the area dedicated to the tomb of Giacomo Leopardi (Recanati, 1798 – Naples, 1838), a monument that since 1939 houses the remains of the poet, here translated from the ancient Church of San Vitale in Fuorigrotta (now disappeared), together with the plaques now embedded on the tuff wall behind. Going up further, one arrives at the square in front of the eastern entrance of the Crypta Neapolitana, one of the oldest tunnels in the world, dug in the Augustan age to facilitate connections between Naples and the Phlegraean Fields.
The prominent position of the funerary mausoleum that dominates the entrance on the Neapolitan side of the Crypta certainly attests to the importance of the person buried there, and this fits well with the long Neapolitan tradition that associates Virgil Maro with the city of Naples and particularly with the grotto through a multiple and complex relationship. Already in ancient times, about a century after the poet’s death, the place became sacred to his admirers and was long a literary theme and a destination for cultured tourism, as with Statius, Pliny the Younger and Silius Italicus, who took care to “approach as a temple” the Virgilian tomb, celebrating the poet’s birthday on 15 October.
Almost uninterruptedly, the tomb was referred to in the following centuries by writers, chroniclers and travelers, Italians and foreigners, among whom Petrarch, Boccaccio and Cino da Pistoia represent sources of precious information. From the 12th century, legends began to be added to the literary testimonies, perhaps already existing in local oral tradition and only then recorded in written texts. However, controversies and doubts persist regarding the authenticity of the tomb, also referring to what was stated by Heliodorus (4th century AD), Virgil’s biographer, according to whom the poet was buried at the second mile of the Puteolana road, a location which for some, instead of corresponding to the area adjacent to the Roman road crossing the grotto towards Pozzuoli, would refer to different and more distant places (Villa Comunale, Piazza Amedeo, slopes of Vesuvius, etc.).
Popular tradition, however, well summarized in the ‘Chronicle of Partenope’ (14th century), has no doubts about the identification: in this mausoleum lay Virgil, risen to divine protector of Naples and magical creator of the Crypta, whose remains were then transferred and walled in a hidden place in Castel dell’Ovo at the time of the Norman conquest, to prevent such a precious simulacrum from being taken away from the city, nullifying its protective function.
The funerary mausoleum, built in opus reticulatum at the beginning of the Imperial age, is of the columbarium type with a cylindrical drum on a quadrangular base, in which a square plan funerary cell with barrel vault is carved, illuminated by slits and equipped with ten niches to house the cinerary urns.
Also known as the “Old Grotto of Pozzuoli”, this gallery was built in the Augustan age by the freedman Lucius Cocceius Aucto, architect of Agrippa and admiral of Octavian, according to Strabo (V, 4, 6) also the maker of Portus Julius, the “Cocceio Grotto” and the Roman Crypta at Cumae. Mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana (a map with road itineraries from the late imperial period) and recalled not only by Strabo but also by Donatus, Seneca, Petronius and Eusebius, the tunnel is entirely excavated in tuff for a length of 705 m, an original width of 4.50 m and a height of about 5.00 m, lit and ventilated by two oblique light wells.
The poor visibility inside the structure already led during the Spanish viceroyalty to the creation of a lighting system made of lanterns supported by ropes stretched between poles; in 1806, under Joseph Bonaparte, two rows of lanterns were installed and kept constantly lit, while from the mid-19th century gas lanterns were used, one of which dating back to the end of the century was found during recent rearrangement works.
Following the widening and lowering of the road surface, as well as paving carried out in several phases by Alfonso of Aragon in 1455, by Don Pedro di Toledo in 1548, by Charles of Bourbon in 1748 and by the Municipality of Naples in 1893, the grotto has lost much of its ancient physiognomy. On the sides of the entrance, two frescoed niches are still visible: the left one with a depiction of Madonna with Child datable to the 14th century, the right one with the face of the Almighty of uncertain dating. Petrarch in the Itinerarium Syriacum recalls a small chapel called Santa Maria dell’Idria, built by a hermit right near the entrance to the grotto.
During the Aragonese restoration or during the works carried out at the time of the Spanish viceroyalty, a white marble bas-relief depicting Mithras dated between the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th century AD was found there, now kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. Testimonies relating to the oriental god Mithras are known in Campania from the 2nd century AD, in opposition to the increasingly widespread Christianity.
The presence of the relief in the Crypta has therefore led to the hypothesis that this is a mitraic place of worship: the mithraeum, in fact, is usually identified in the spelaeum, the cosmic cave, inside which, since the earliest iconographic testimonies, the sacrifice of the bull is depicted. It is probable that mystery cults have greatly influenced popular superstition, which has always associated something mysterious and magical with the grotto, to the point that simply crossing it unharmed was considered a true miracle.
Information about Parco e Tomba di Virgilio
Salita della grotta, 20 80121 Napoli (Naples)
Tel. 081.669390
 after the splendid Roman villa that once stood on the hill to signify the peace and tranquility found there.){kind=link}