One of the world's most valuable collections of jewels, dedicated to the patron saint of Naples, has gone on show in an unprecedented exhibition. The treasure of San Gennaro is said to rival Britain's Crown Jewels and those of the Russian tsars in value.
The 70 pieces were transported under armed guard to a museum in Rome. They include a bishop's mitre encrusted in stones, and a large necklace composed of thousands of gems, donated by many crowned heads of Europe.
The jewels, statues and religious items such as golden chalices were donated over several centuries to the patron saint of Naples, San Gennaro, or Januarius in English. But for much of that time, the treasure of San Gennaro was kept away from the public eye in a vault in Naples cathedral.
Gennaro, the bishop of Naples, was martyred in the third century. He has been venerated down the centuries as the city's protector against war, the plague, earthquakes, shipwrecks and natural disasters, says the BBC's Rome correspondent, David Willey.
In the 1520s, when Naples was beset by disease, war and the frequent eruption of the nearby Mount Vesuvius, Neapolitans pledged to build a chapel to San Gennaro and safeguard the donated treasure, in return for the saint's protection. "The city was on its last legs, but the people of Naples knew which saint to turn to," said the exhibition's curator Paolo Jorio.
Kings, popes and emperors have all sent valuable tributes to the saint's shrine. One of the highlights of the exhibition is a bishop's mitre, decorated with 3,964 diamonds, rubies and emeralds. But perhaps the centrepiece is the necklace of San Gennaro, which was begun in 1679 and includes a jewel-studded cross donated by Napoleon Bonaparte.
