Palermo crypt.
ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES
Rosalia Lombardo, an embalmed baby in the Capuchin crypt of Palermo, Sicily.
One of most chilling sights in the world is the Catacombe dei Cappuccini (Capuchin Catacombs) in Palermo, Sicily. Beginning in the 1500s and up until the turn of the 20th Century the monks used to inter their dead here, using a kind of dry-embalming method, and the desiccated corpses were put on display. Non-clergy were also interred here, and there were sections of the crypt devoted to people from various walks of life.
Among the most famous of the interred is Sicilian author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who penned the great novel The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) about Sicily in the wake of the unifying Risorgimento of the 19th Century. At one time family members of the deceased would visit their dead relatives and have a meal with them present - dinner with Uncle Salvatore or nonna Costanza. "Zia Teresa, you look pale, have some more red wine! Nonno, finish your pasta con le sarde. You're just skin and bones!"
Though the crypt is not heavily touted, you can still visit this most amazing attraction in Palermo. I went in 1985. They sell postcards of the bodies, and this is probably one of the few places in the world from which you can send a postcard home with pictures of corpses ("Having a great time, wish you were here.") The lovely and sad little Rosalia Lombardo, one of the last interred here (1920), is wonderfully preserved and also appears on a postcard.
Francesco Rosi's incredible 1976 film Cadaveri eccellenti (Illustrious Corpses) begins with a sequence that takes place here. This crypt is not to be confused with the Capuchin Cemetery on Via Veneto in Rome. That place is eerie too, but is only arrangements of bones in little side chapels.
More information can be found in this Wikipedia article.
Rosalia Lombardo, an embalmed baby in the Capuchin crypt of Palermo, Sicily.
One of most chilling sights in the world is the Catacombe dei Cappuccini (Capuchin Catacombs) in Palermo, Sicily. Beginning in the 1500s and up until the turn of the 20th Century the monks used to inter their dead here, using a kind of dry-embalming method, and the desiccated corpses were put on display. Non-clergy were also interred here, and there were sections of the crypt devoted to people from various walks of life.
Among the most famous of the interred is Sicilian author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who penned the great novel The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) about Sicily in the wake of the unifying Risorgimento of the 19th Century. At one time family members of the deceased would visit their dead relatives and have a meal with them present - dinner with Uncle Salvatore or nonna Costanza. "Zia Teresa, you look pale, have some more red wine! Nonno, finish your pasta con le sarde. You're just skin and bones!"
Though the crypt is not heavily touted, you can still visit this most amazing attraction in Palermo. I went in 1985. They sell postcards of the bodies, and this is probably one of the few places in the world from which you can send a postcard home with pictures of corpses ("Having a great time, wish you were here.") The lovely and sad little Rosalia Lombardo, one of the last interred here (1920), is wonderfully preserved and also appears on a postcard.
Francesco Rosi's incredible 1976 film Cadaveri eccellenti (Illustrious Corpses) begins with a sequence that takes place here. This crypt is not to be confused with the Capuchin Cemetery on Via Veneto in Rome. That place is eerie too, but is only arrangements of bones in little side chapels.
More information can be found in this Wikipedia article.