Church of Carminiello ai Mannesi

The temple was razed to the ground during an air raid in 1943; amid the rubble it was discovered that the walls and floor of the church concealed the remains of a large Roman-era building, spanning the whole of an insula between the Decumanus Maggiore and the Decumanus Minore. The vast archaeological find took the name Complesso di Carminiello ai Mannesi (Carminiello ai Mannesi Complex).

The Chiesa del Carminiello ai Mannesi (Church of Carminiello ai Mannesi) was a church in Naples.

Historical notes

A first church was built at some uncertain point during the Early Middle Ages, and was later absorbed into the church of Santa Maria del Carmine ai Mannesi during the 16th century. While the diminutive Carminiello ('little Carmine') was used on account of the church's modest size, the place name "Mannesi" instead refers to the whole surrounding area, where cart builders and repairers mainly worked.

The Roman building

The Roman building (which incorporated into its foundations the remains of a pre-existing late-Republican domus^[1]) was constructed at the end of the 1st century AD and is arranged over two floors, featuring cross vaults and brick arches, along with panels of opus reticulatum in yellow tuff. The lower floor was given over to service rooms arranged around a large frescoed rectangular room, while a small bath complex can be made out to the south. On the upper floor, meanwhile, one can identify a large rectangular pool covered in cocciopesto (a waterproof Roman mortar) and a small pool with a central stepped fountain, faced with white marble.

During the Imperial era the complex underwent renovations, the most significant of which was the installation of a Mithraeum in two rooms on the lower floor: this is recognisable from the remains of a stucco relief visible on the rear wall, depicting the god Mithras in the act of slaying the bull. Towards the west, rectangular pillars made of tuff blocks and brick were raised, perhaps to create an external portico.

The life of the building did not extend beyond the end of the 4th century. Indeed, from the 5th to the 7th century it served as a rubbish tip and receptacle for urban waste. These layers, distinct and excavated with extreme care^[2], have allowed the recovery of a large amount of archaeological material (mainly pottery, bones, glass, coins, etc.)^[3], thanks to which it has been possible not only to trace, for that period, the gradual decline of domestic animal farming and thus of diet, but also to reconstruct the trade flows of early medieval Naples. More precisely, it has been established that until the mid-6th century Naples imported foodstuffs (chiefly oil and wine) from Tunisia, Asia Minor, Syria and the Levant; and later tableware ceramics (the so-called sigillata chiara D) from Tunisia and Asia Minor. The 7th-century layers, by contrast, bear witness to a revival of Campanian wine production, and to the existence of a glass workshop in the area.

After the 7th century, perhaps also following the construction of the first church, some rooms of the Roman building were reused for unspecified purposes (as dwellings, storerooms, or cellars), and some openings were made in the ancient walls. The marble pool with the central fountain on the upper floor became a burial place for a group of infants ranging in age from around four months to four years; they were covered with soil containing glazed pottery from the 13th century.