You'll find three types of tombs in here, each reflecting a different social class. The wealthy opted for the open-room cubiculum, originally guarded by gates and adorned with colourful wall frescoes. One cubiculum to the left of the entrance features an especially beautiful funerary fresco of a mother, father and child. In actual fact, you're looking at three layers of frescoes, one commissioned for each death. The smaller, rectangular wall niches, known as loculum, were the domain of the middle classes, while the forme (floor tombs) were reserved for the poor.
Further ahead you'll stumble upon the so-called basilica minore (minor basilica), home to the tombs of San Gennaro and 5th-century Archbishop of Naples, Giovanni I. Sometime between 413 and 431, Giovanni I accompanied the martyr's remains from Pozzuoli to Naples, burying them here before Lombard prince Sico I of Benevento snatched them in the 9th century. The basilica minore also harbours fragments of a fresco depicting Naples' first bishop, Sant'Aspreno. The city's bishops were buried in this catacomb until the 11th century.
Close to the basilica minore is a 3rd-century tomb whose Pompeiian-hued artwork employs both Christian and pagan elements. In the image of three women building a castle, the figures represent the three virtues, while the castle symbolises the Church.
The catacomb's recently opened lower level is even older, dating back to the 2nd century and speckled with typically pagan motifs like fruit and animals. The painting on the side of San Gennaro's tomb – depicting the saint with Mt Vesuvius and Mt Somma on his shoulders – is the first known image of San Gennaro as the protector of Naples. Also on the lower level is the Basilica di Agrippino, named in honour of Sant'Agrippino. The sixth bishop of Naples, Agrippino was also the first Christian to be buried in the catacomb, back in the 3rd century.
