As we have seen at the end of the “translatio” the body of St. Gennaro was buried in Naples, in the Church of St. Gennaro ad Corpus. Here it was kept from 315 to 831, until the Longobard prince Sicone had it stolen to bring it back in Benevento, where the saint had been bishop.

Church of St. Gennaro in Antignano: Representation of the "Translatio"

This Church of St. Gennaro ad Corpus was identified by the tradition with the Church of St. Gennaro dei Poveri (St. Gennaro of the Poor), dating back to the III century and located in proximity to the catacombs of the saint, in Capodimonte.

However, during the second stage of the “translatio”, (from the Marciano to St. Gennaro ad Corpus), the funeral cortege which walked along Via Antiniana, stopped just in Antignano, to allow the filling, with the blood of the martyr miraculously not yet coagulated, of two glass ampullae, as it is also represented in the long marble bas-relief exposed in the present Church of St. Gennaro in Antignano, built in the place where anciently, as a remembrance of the event, it raised a chapel dedicated to the saint, successively destroyed by unbelievers.

Church of St. Gennaro in Antignano

Also the Church of St. Gennaro in Vomero, situated at the corner between via Bernini and via Solimena, reminds us the passage of the “translatio“ through these places.

But, returning to the Church of St. Gennaro ad Corpus, alias S. Gennaro Extramoenia, alias S. Gennaro dei Poveri, we should also say that in 786, with the “Pact of Arechi II”, it was given to it Pianura, one of the territories contested for a long time between Naples (which had become by that time an autonomous Ducat) and the Longbard Capua.
It was just Arechi II, who had enlarged the already wide territory of the Ducat of Benevento and become prince of Salerno, who wanted Pianura to belong to Naples, through the entrustment of that territory to the Church of St. Gennaro ad Corpus. This is probably to be interpreted as an act of deference of the Longobard prince towards the Church of Rome and indirectly towards the Franks of Charlemagne, tutor of the Holy See and already conqueror, in Italy, of the Longobard reign of Desiderius.

Nevertheless we wonder: “Why was this donation made just to the Church of St. Gennaro ad Corpus? And if Pianura was the “Marciano”? So we could explain the donation of Pianura as an act of faith of Arechi II, who, in such a way, wanted to give to the Church of St. Gennaro ad Corpus a territory which it could morally own, as it was considered “sacred” for the burial of the saint and, for this reason, venerated by the believers.

professor Alessandro GIULIANI