Alas,
Poor Yorick...Which One are You?
Stacks of skulls, guarded by a trio of bony monks.
A
Long Nap
This
mummified brother rests in peace?
Ossified
Ornaments
Even
the chandeliers are constructed from the deceased.
"What you are now
we used to be.
What we are now,
you will be."
--sign
on the wall of the Capuchin Crypt
See
It to Believe It:
Near Piazza
Barberini, below Santa Maria della Immaculata Concezione
Church on Via Veneto, Rome
|
 |
While reliquaries often give a glimpse,
a teasing peep show of a bit of bone or leathery skin,
this was something else entirely.
Here at the Capuchin Crypt, the earthly
remains of some 4000 monks are displayed in all their gruesome
glory. Some mummified in their monks' robes, others
assembled as skeletons, but most taken apart and the pieces
arranged in baroque patterns on the walls and ceiling.
Don't
Fear the Reaper
A
skeletal grim reaper, scapulae sickle in one hand, bony scale
hanging from the other, suspended above the corridor.
Created by the monks from the remains of their
brethren in the 17th and 18th centuries, the five small rooms
that make up the display left me startled. Alone,
except for the taciturn monk who admitted me (settled
just out of sight at the end of the hall), I looked
death in the face...and pelvis...and ankle bone...and knee
cap.
Patterns
of Human Pieces
Pelvis,
vertebrae, femur...nothing is wasted.
Coming from a society that has such
a denial of death, where all traces of our mortality
are quickly swept under the rug, the close confrontation with
such a profusion of human remains was shocking. But the longer
I stood there the more I understood that what's left after
death is not so important. It's what we make of our
own lives while we have the chance that matters.
Next:
Baptized in the Pantheon |
