The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located in the upper part of the Marina district, near the steps of St. Anthony. Its history is closely linked to that of the Confraternity of Oration and Death (or Holy Sepulcher), which cared for the burial of the abandoned poor, and which probably had its first headquarters in the area now occupied by the underground chapel. The naming is to be related to the great fascination exercised over the centuries by the Holy Sepulcher of Christ in Jerusalem. Its present physiognomy appears as the result of various construction interventions from the second half of the 16th century until the early 19th century, when the cemetery that stood next to it was abandoned in order to create St. Sepulchre Square. To the Baroque phase we owe the great Chapel of Pieta, with a central octagonal plan covered by a dome, which was built in 1686 at the behest of Viceroy Lopez de Ayala, and in which there is a splendid carved and polychromed wooden altarpiece housing an ancient image of the Virgin in Pieta. Behind the altar recent work in the sacristy has revealed archaeological pre-existences of considerable interest.
