Prince of San Severo

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He was born to Antonio, the Duke of Torremaggiore and Cecilia Gaetani dell'Aquila d'Aragona (Torremaggiore, January 30, 1710-Naples, 22 March 1771). Lost his mother shortly after birth, was always deeply attached to devote much of her, in the Chapel Sansevero, the statue of the "Veiled Modesty" in which a woman is completely covered with a cloth that allows a glimpse of the forms, rests with a stone broken to indicate precisely the untimely death.



His father, Antonio di Sangro, superficial and libertine, a girl obsessed with San Severo, he had killed his father, who opposed the report. Accused of wrongdoing by Nicola Rossi, mayor of San Severo, was forced to flee to the Court of Vienna where he became intimate of the Emperor, still protesting his innocence. Perhaps because of corruption, the judiciary and the case filed Pugliese Antonio di Sangro was able to return in his estates, where, however, was soon to take revenge of his main accuser making him kill. To escape the shooting to prison escape, after various vicissitudes, ended in Rome and Antonio di Sangro took vows and retired to a monastery.
The young Raymond was then entrusted to the care of his paternal grandparents who, 10 years, sent him to study at the Jesuit school in Rome, where he remained until the age of 20 years, acquiring a culture much higher than the average, combined with his natural inclination to study (except the grammar because of which he lost a year), he made one of the "genes" of the eighteenth century Neapolitan and European level.

Him has said that he was a naturalist, astronomer, poet, writer, soldier, patron. Raimondo di Sangro, however, had something more. He loved to practice all sorts of experiments in person.

Raimondo Di Sangro claimed to have invented:

The perpetual lamp or eternal light, was composed of a mixture of phosphate of calcium and phosphorus in high concentration can burn much longer than any light,
A carriage that moves for short distances without the horses. He planned a sort of amphibious car capable of crossing stretches of water. Created new techniques for printing, new fabrics (including kind of silk plant) and new types of paints for durability.




It was he who built a cannon alloy of iron when all others were made of bronze, and it was always he who invented a breech-loading gun, anticipating much of a revolution in military weapons. Raymond Prince as well as the inventor, was fascinated with anatomy and physiology of talk about so-called "anatomical machines". Two human skeletons, one male and one female, covered the entire network veins and arteries preserved in detail too precise anatomical knowledge of the time. The most famous legend tells that the two machines were obtained by the prince entering the bloodstream of the two unfortunate victims of a special liquid metal. If this were true, of course, mean that the two people were still alive when the experiment was carried out, otherwise the blood could not circulate and spread so widely. Moreover, if we look at the woman's body, it is understood that she was pregnant, because it is locally known as the uterus and the fetus can be seen at his feet, the remains of the placenta. One anonymous wrote of the time states that the process of "metallization" of blood vessels was discovered and experienced by Raimondo di Sangro in collaboration with the Medical Palermo Giuseppe Salerno.



E' ancora possibile vedere questi strani e macabri oggetti nella già citata Cappella Sanseveroa Napoli. Qui sono custoditi gli "orridi armadi", così chiamati perché al loro interno sono conservati due corpi umani a cui sembra essere stato tolto l'involucro.

War against death

He had decided to declare war to the death, eventually creating the elixir of life. Even more, he wanted to find a way to become immortal. Most likely suffered the influences of some current alchemy that allowed him to acquire deep knowledge of magic and occultism. So it was that he came to the creation of a product with a mysterious composition, that the intention of the prince was even able to raise the following dead. In unknown trials, Raimondo di Sangro decided to try first hand the miraculous essence of his invention and that was how he came to arrange his own death to be reborn to new life. Legend has it that Raymond, having ordered a servant to his corpse into pieces and store in a trunk, he decided the moment of his departure and took the mysterious substance. The process of resurrection was in fact followed this gruesome procedure. The body of the prince was to remain in the trunk for a certain period of time, after which he would return alive. But the family of the prince, learned of the existence of the trunk and believing that it was concealed in a fabulous treasure, they did take greed. Consequently, despite the protests of the servant who guarded it, the trunk was opened prematurely. The spectacle that followed was worthy of a horror movie. The body of the Neapolitan nobleman left his temporary tomb. It was once again "alive", but the process of welding the limbs could not be completed, and the prince had become a creature of horrifying and grotesque. In the midst of the terror of those present, what was Raimondo di Sangro screamed and slumped back into the trunk, falling apart. In fact, he died a second time for good.