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The 17th-century Neapolitan nobility used the grave of a little-known North African saint as a horrific body preservation business.
A few of his ecclesiastical colleagues, including a bishop from Tunisia named Septimius Celius Gaudiosus, were abruptly abandoned at sea in the Mediterranean in the 430s CE by the Vandal king Genseric, who had just taken control of Roman North Africa. The bishop was the target of the ascending king's ire because he refused to join the Vandals in converting to the heretical Arian religion. Despite his lack of oars, Gaudiosus made his way north to Naples, where he established a monastery, brought the Rule of Augustine (another African saint) to Italy, and, according to tradition, was interred with other African refugees from the 5th century in the Greek-era catacombs that are now found in the Sanità neighborhood of the city.
