San Gennaro, the son of Naples

San Gennaro, who has an immense treasure trove of artefacts housed in the city and an army of 25 million devotees worldwide, regularly grabs the headlines with a centuries-old ritual of blood liquefaction that scientists are unable to explain. But how much do we know about San Gennaro and his miracle without falling into folklore? Paolo Jorio, the Director of the Museum of the Treasure of San Gennaro, sheds light on the real story behind the saint who has become an emblem of Neapolitan culture.

Let’s start from the basics, who was San Gennaro?

We know very little about his life, except that he was the bishop of Benevento, a town not far from Naples, and during the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Diocletian around 300 AD, he went to the rescue of some deacons imprisoned near Pozzuoli. Once there, he was arrested himself and sentenced to death because he refused to abandon Christianity. He was beheaded in 305 AD in the Solfatara, an active volcano in Pozzuoli, part of the