Capuchin Crypt Cemetery - Most Complete Information in Internet

The cemetery of the Capuchins (Capuchin Crypt) is adjacent to the Church of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, built in 1624 by the will of Cardinal Antonio Barberini cappuccino and adorned with paintings by Pietro da Cortona and Domenichino. In each of the rooms are gathered the bones of about four thousand monks dead in Rome during a period running from the sixteenth century to 1870.

The bones are positioned to form decorative elements while some skeletons are dressed in the know of friars and placed in niches they also made up of bones. It is believed that the construction of these crypts is built by a Frenchman escaped from the period of terror during French Revolution in the eighteenth century and once he arrived in Rome, he sought to exorcise in this way and put an end symbolically all'Ancien regime. It is said that the soil that lies on the floor of rooms comes from the Holy Land.

".. We were like you and you'll be like us ..." This is the inscription that introduces us to the place, where it is impossible not to make us to think ... in silence.

Capuchin Crypt consisted of 5 Chapels and a corridor of 60 metres long. Hard to describe what you are going to feel, when you visit this place, the chapels are decorated with bones, femori, vertebrae, rotule and phalanges that make up garlands on the walls and stars, chandeliers. The skeletons are chemically treated to resist the exposure and time. You can find postcards, slides and books that explain the history of this enchanting place. To access the Capuchin Crypt, you must leave a bid, is open all year.

Respect to the dead is exist in every nation, the desire to remove the body of ancestors as the consequences of death, the desire to maintain the remains with care is suggested to be the aim of this crypt.

The tangible example of this process is the underground Capuchin Crypt Cemetery often improperly called as "Catacombs." It is located outside the walls of the city and its construction dates from around 1599 by the Capuchins who since their emergence, had apostolate as hospitals, assistance to the dying, and often were called to assist armies on the battlefields.

This apostolate always in contact with poor people without family ties, most died in hospitals or in the streets. The Capuchins, especially, took care of these miserable people, to assist them in providing funeral at the time of their death and support in their souls with prayer.

They were in Palermo around 1533 and obtained a small church dedicated to St. Maria della Pace, outside the city walls, built in memory of peace, by two brothers, Roger and Bohemond, for reasons of war, since the Capuchins have never changed site. The first burial was built in the southern side of the church and consisted simply of a ditch; soon became insufficient and then began the excavation of a second pit behind the altar, they say that when the friars exhumed the bodies of their brothers buried in the first ditch, to bring them into the new burial, the bodies were found intact in spite, they were buried close to each other wrapped only by a sheet.

Obviously that fact aroused sensation among the friars who cannot give an explanation for this phenomenon, it is interesting to restore what he wrote at the time of discovery: "...... In 1599, during the transfer of bodies from the old to the new burial. When the ditch is dug to recover the bones, there is no bad smell, we found 45 bodies of brothers all still fresh and recognizable, in particular, some grows hair and beard, seemed to be happy and as if that they were dead not for so long. This fact was so overwhelming that the sacristan was come to visit the provincial friar; thought it appropriate to detach the head of one of these brothers to put in a tray to conduct autopsy...... .. "

Since 1601, given the large number of corpses who came and especially for the many requests for nobles who demanded to be buried in that place, drove the brothers to enlarge the burial. The first noble to be allowed to be accepted in the cemetery were Don Carlo Firmatura with permission in July 30, 1634, and at June 24, 1636 Don Carlo Agliata, his wife Josephine and their son Don Bernardino at November 16, 1636 obtained permission from Don Scipione Cotton;

Antonio Prestigiacomo embalmed by the method of bathing with arsenic

There were few inspections by the competent authorities to safeguard public health and in all the reports we read that the Capuchin's method adopted for the bone storage is acceptable and that gave the Capuchins the privilege of continuing to bury the corpses nevertheless the Royal Decree of 1710 and later, ordered the burial of corpses to a mile away from urban rather than inside the churches.

In three hundred years, among friars, priests, men and women between children, between rich and poor, between righteous and sinners, these walls housed countless corpses, many unknown, many important, to track the story of everyone is impossible.

Phone: 06-4871185. www.cappucciniviaveneto.it Metro:Barberini. Bus: 62, 116, and 119 to Largo Tritone. Admission: Recommended donation 4€($5.20). Open: Fri-Wed 9 a.m. to noon and 3-6 p.m.

Pindemonte who visited in November 2, 1779 was so struck and immortalize the cemetery in his poem "The Tomb", the city grateful and thankful for the poet, called the road that leads to the Church and then to the cemetery Via Pindemonte.

What strikes most for the visitor, is the method used by monks for the preservation of corpses. Since that method, in those days so usual that none of the authors who in the past have occupied the cemetery saw fit to bring it back in their writings. The first to speak was Gastone Carlo, in his work "Journey in Sicily" of 1828. He briefly describes the method showing in his writings that the corpses were placed in a room, lying down or sitting and lock the door so as not to let the stench go out, the corpse remained there for about a year, then the door is opened and the body is still relatively whole and intact. Later in a report prepared after an inspection by Senator of the city of Palermo, Federico Launch of Brolo notes that the corpses no more than 8 to 10 were brought into a room, lying above a grate made of terracotta pipes and the door is closed tightly, remained there for about eight months to a year. Then the corpse were transported to a place covered with ventilated roof, where they were washed and cleaned with water and vinegar, then covered and placed in wooden boxes or in niches along the corridors. They were there for the relatives to find them and brought them the wax for three consecutive years, otherwise the corpse were removed as provided by the Article 41 of Regulation issued by the town of Palermo in 1868.

In times of serious epidemic, method used to immerse the corpses in a bath of arsenic or lime and this is the method used for the body of Antonio Prestigiacomo, recognizable by its reddish color. There is also the method based of medicines invented by Dr. Solafia which was used for the corpse of the small, Rosalia Lombardo died on December 6, 1920.

Currently, the Capuchin brothers deal with the maintenance and conservation of the crypt by allowing the visit of countless tourists from all over the world, to come visit this monument that is ghoulish yet unique.