After our visit to the Domitilla Catacombs we were taken by bus to the Capuchin Crypt, which turned out to be the most unusual of all our Roman adventures.
Still operated as a spiritual community run by the Capuchin Franciscan Friars, the Museum and Crypt, as well as the chapel, are places of quiet, contemplation and respect for the dead. Although the information put out by Viator Tours (see them at http://viator.com) for this part of our afternoon tour didn’t try to hide anything, I hadn’t really expected to see human skeleton parts, especially not in the sort of arrangements that greeted us.
No photos were allowed during the tour and the place was kept fairly dark to preserve the bones. Also, we were moved along the narrow passage way at an almost brisk pace, so taking notes when in a confined space, quickly became impossible, so I have to rely on memory, with a little assistance from the small booklet I bought at the end of the visit.
Opening off the long passage was a series of small spaces, which I suspect were formerly cells for the monks. The only light came directly into the passage from small windows high up in the external wall. There would have been no natural light in the cells if each one was separated from the passage.
At first I only noticed what looked like a couple of friars in their brown habits, standing in a niche, apparently praying. Several others stood in similar poses around the ‘room’. All of them were very short, but I assumed that was because they had been preserved from sometime in the past, when humans were much shorter than today. Their habits flopped down over head, hands and feet, so it wasn’t obvious that these were full skeletons until I looked closely.
Then our leader pointed to the decorative light fittings above us in the passage. When I realised that they were made from assorted bones (I think from memory that the first ones were fingers) I felt a bit queasy, exacerbated by the stuffy, confined space. Somehow whole skeletons were okay by me, but bits of the same had me wondering which bones came from which former bodies.
By making my head rule, I was soon able to appreciate that the designs were actually very attractive, similar to the sort of metal decorative light fittings I have seen in Austria, although these were consistently dull brown. ‘Pity they didn’t paint them,’ I thought, once I’d got past the ‘bones’ issue.
No-one seems to know exactly where all the bones come from but, as lots of friars have lived in Capuchin communities here and in other parts of Rome, and Europe, it’s likely that these bones are part of the ancient collection, gathered into this one place and I presume added to over the ensuing years.
The Marquis de Sade visited the crypt in 1775 and commented on the display of bones in six or seven small rooms – what are now called Crypts. I still can’t understand how the bones are so well preserved, even allowing for a rotation of the old ones with newer ones. And no-one is sure who the artist was who put together the artistic arrangements.
Each of the rooms was named – Crypt of the leg and thigh bones, Crypt of the Pelvises, and the spooky Crypt of the Skulls.
Although I found the Crypts interesting, I think we all were pleased to reach the end of the tour and escape into the small shop and out into the fresh air.
It’s a place that really needs visual presentation, so if you are interested, I suggest you look it up on Google. I checked the following site and found it informative with enough photos to give a good idea of what to expect. untappedcities.com/2013/…/capuchin–crypt–monument-of-human–bones–corpses–rom.
The following day we caught the train to Florence.