Capuchin Crypt Rome

                                       

                                "What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be..."

For lovers of the macabre, a trip to Rome is not complete without visiting the Capuchin Crypt underneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini.

Although the crypt's six rooms are tiny, it is estimated that they house 3,700 bodies of long deceased Capuchin Friars. It began in 1631 when the monks arrived at the site with 300 cartloads of expired friars which were then arranged into beautiful motifs overseen by Fr. Michael of Bergamo.

Over the years a newly lifeless monk would be buried in the grave of the oldest deceased monk who would be exhumed, and slowly the bones started amounting (though I believe not all the bones are of monks- some are of citizens including children). The soil the monks were buried in was brought over from Jerusalem.

There are six different rooms as follows: The Crypt of the Resurrection, The Mass Chapel (not containing any bones), The Crypt of the Skulls,  The Crypt of the Pelvises, The Crypt of the Leg and Thigh Bones and The Crypt of the Three Skeletons.

Crypt of the Skulls

Crypt of the Pelvises

Crypt of the Leg and Thigh Bones

Crypt of the Three Skeletons

 Inside these rooms you will find human bones that adorn the ceiling in beautifully intricate designs and patterns. The artistry is divine and the simplicity of the repeating body parts to create compositions and specific motifs like hour glasses, frames and arrangements that are almost botanic is really quite inspiring. 

Ceiling of the Crypt of the Three Skeletons

*Please note that being such a sacred place photography was strictly forbidden, so none of the above images are my own, but sourced from other sites. 

Sedlec Ossuary

If you like your travel experiences to involve death and the reminder of mortality, then the top of your list should be the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutna Hora, just outside of Prague in the Czech Republic. 

I went for my birthday and the irony of spending the day of my birth in a place filled with thousands or corpses was not lost on me. In fact it was a nice reminder of the temporality of life, and that there can still be beauty in death even after the flesh has melted from our bones. 

The Sedlec Ossuary is said to contain a small amount of earth from Golgotha that the abbot from the Cistercian monastery brought back from the holy land in the late 13th Century. When news of this spread, the (then) cemetery became a very popular burial ground among people. Of course use of the cemetery only grew after the black death in the mid 14th Century. 

A chapel was built in the middle of the cemetery with a lower level to house the bones exhumed from the site. The beautiful and macabre result of the arranged bones that we see today did not happen until 1870 when František Rint, a woodcarver was employed to arrange the piles of osseous matter. 

Well worth the travel, this place is at the top of my list so far for intrigue, fascination and morbidity. 

It has been a very long time since I have had time to add to this blog, but I recently went to an interesting exhibition at the british library that gave motivation to find the time to write.  The exhibition was called  Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination, and houses 200 interesting objects and artefacts that trace the gothic imagination back 250 years to Horace Walpole's novel The Castle of Ontranto, which is believed to have inspired the whole gothic genre. 

Other interesting features also include authentic drafts of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a 'Vampire Slaying Kit' and my personal favourite- the infamous 'Dear Boss' letter from our old pal Jack the Ripper. 

Though photography was unfortunately not permitted I have managed to scrape together some images to get you in the mood. The exhibition is on until January 20th  2015.