ABSTRACT
San Gennaro Catacombs in Naples (Italy) are the clear witness of how the Greek city arose and then became the contemporary town. At the foot of the Capodimonte hill, cavities were excavated since the arrival of the first Greeks from Cuma (6th century b.C.) as underground pits of tuff, to be used to build the New Town: Nea Polis, Naples. In time, the catacombs of San Gennaro have been transformed into a religious site, becoming a place of widespread religious worship because of the burial of Saint Gennaro, protector of the city, and have been enriched with precious stuccos. After an unwavering abandonment and decline, and with the goal of a conscious reuse, the Catacombs are living a new life and are now one of the main attractions of the city. In the spirit of a consistent recovery and conservation program, there is now the idea to let the people into the catacombs from the original entrance. Therefore, works have been carried out on an adjacent cavity, connecting it to the catacombs. The new touristic path has been designed after extensive geotechnical investigation and analyses. The paper will present the numerical analyses carried out to assess the stability of the system of cavities, and the protection and restoration works under way. It is shown that the irregular pattern of existing fractures rules the mechanical behavior of the tuff around the cavities. The analyses allowed to identify possibly dangerous instability mechanisms close at the main entrance of the catacombs.
