What surprised me the most about the Capuchin Crypt, Italy’s Bone Church
The Capuchin Crypt lies beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione. Outside, tourists of Rome walk past the gelateria on the corner and patronize the small restaurants that line the street. It altogether looks rather normal. The front of the church looks like any other in Rome, with an old stone facade and marble carvings. But inside it hides something altogether bizarre and unsettling. Inside rests a crypt filled with human bones arranged in artistic patterns.
I expected the bizarre, but I didn’t expect to be surprised in these ways.
There are bones everywhere inside the Capuchin crypt.
You might think that’s obvious, but it’s not merely piles of bones. Yes, there are stacks of skulls and femurs, but it’s more than that. There are skeletons nailed to the walls; one, in particular, wields a scythe and holds scales made of human bones. When you walk into the crypt the first thing you might notice is the chandeliers above your head. They too are made of human tailbones. The ossuary even contains a crypt made up entirely of pelvises.
Some of the skeletons still have flesh on their bones.
Yes, even after hundreds of years, some of these remains still have skin. Most of the specimens are simply bones, devoid of any flesh or clothing. But some bodies of former Capuchin monks still wear the signature brown tunic and remnants of dried skin cling to their bones. These monks are scattered around the crypt in varying poses. Some lie out as if for burial, and some stand tall as if waiting to walk over and greet you as you pass.
One peculiar specimen is of two severed arms nailed to the wall. The arms cross each other at the wrists as if in an embrace. Both arms still have skin and nails, and one of the arms is clothed in the tattered remains of a Capuchin robe.
No one knows exactly why they started doing this.
The Catholic church did not commission the artwork if that’s what you want to call it. It makes sense that the Capuchin monks would do such a thing, as they were known to be “independent spirits.” They wore only a brown tunic, walked barefoot, and refused to keep any money. They lived an impoverished life among the people, to be closer to God.
Few records about the crypt exist, but the mythology provides many origins for its creation. Records show that the monks moved from the friary of Rome’s St. Bonaventure to Santa Maria della Concezione in the middle of the 17th century. When they moved, they excavated all their dead brothers and brought them along to the new location.
Sometime after this, the overseer at the time, Friar Micheal of Bergamo, started arranging the remains in these patterns. Other monks picked up the habit and over time it became a tradition.
You are not allowed to take photos in the crypt.
This is in large part why I don’t have any photos of the crypt in this article. The church that contains the Capuchin crypt is still an active friary, and these are the dead bodies of the friars that lived and worked in these halls. Just as you would not want a teenager taking a selfie with your grandmother’s skull, the monks do not wish such desecration of their crypt. Keep your cameras put up and take in the images with your eyes. There are plenty of books and postcards in the gift shop before you exit.
There’s a gift shop.
Yeah, you read that correctly. While the crypt itself is hundreds of years old, the building around it has been upgraded and modernized. When you first walk in, it looks like the lobby of an upscale hotel, with new carpeting and modern adornments. A young man sits at the front desk in a dark suit and wears a name tag. Past this lobby, you don’t make it directly into the crypt. Instead, you pass through a museum built to commemorate the history of the crypt itself and the Capuchin monks. It’s worth taking some time in here, as the history of the Capuchins is rather interesting. For example, did you know that both capuchin monkeys and cappucino is named after the Capuchin monks?
Once you pass through the museum and the crypt itself, your final stop is a gift shop. This feels a little bit out of place, and a little bit distasteful, but I do have to admit we spent a good amount of time in there. We ended up with a coffee cup, some fridge magnets, and if they hadn’t been out of stock of the English version, we would have bought one of the coffee table books. It’s rather interesting to see an ancient site surrounded by modern amenities like a lobby and handicap accessible restrooms, but luckily the crypt itself has been left mostly untouched by the modern world. The two exceptions I noticed were the speakers that pumped music into the rooms and the electric lights that replaced the candles on the tail bone chandeliers overhead.
It’s absolutely beautiful and there is an air of calm inside the crypt.
When I first heard of the crypt, I thought it would be interesting to see, because it sounded so odd. I expected to be horrified. I did not expect the beauty to blow me away. The crypt might be unsettling to some, but to me, it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Being inside the crypt itself also gave me a sense of calm that I haven’t felt often. It might have come from the choral music they pumped in through scattered speakers, but I feel the sense of calm came from being so close to death but in a safe way. All these people died hundreds of years ago. They lived, they suffered, and in the end, they all had to die, as we all do
A placard in the crypt brings it home. In five languages, it reads:
“What you are now, we used to be; what we are now you will be…”
That’s not a scary thing. For some reason, that makes me feel safe. Of all the uncertainties in the world, the one thing we can all count on is that we will one day die. You can spend your life worrying about that, but there’s nothing you can do to change it. For some reason, that makes me feel at peace.
