Bones

It seems to me that Romans have a fascination with bones, skulls, skeletons, death, and everything that goes with them. Nowhere is that more evident than at the Capuchin Crypt--otherwise known as The Bone Church.


Before you get to the bone area, you have to go through a museum that tells the story of Capuchin monks and their history in Rome. Of course we paid extra for the headphones.
The Capuchins big claim to fame is their extreme vow of poverty. Started around 1500, their rules allow each monk one pointed-hood tunic and a rope belt. Everything else is received through begging. Cappucino coffee drinks are named after Capucins because they're the same color brown as the monks' tunics.

The new pope--Francis--likes these guys a lot. He chose his pope name after St. Francis of Assisi. SFOA founded the order for a life of solitude, penance, and serving the poor...all hot buttons for Pope Francis.

After you finish the museum tour, you're rewarded with a trip through the underground Capuchin crypt, or ossuary. 

Here the skeletons of nearly 4000 dead monks have been used to create 5 chapels of individually decorated scenes. This is not a bone tossed here and there. Each chapel has intricately composed scenes and decor all made of different bones. There are niches and chair rails, frescoes and arches, chandeliers and wall art, even fully-posed skeletons dressed in their Capuchin habits as if they're conversing or just observing us observing them.

One of the first rooms has a skeleton monk standing by a sign with this message:

"What you are, we once were.

What we are, you someday will be."

That should get you thinking.

The Marquis de Sade visited the crypt in 1776 and called it "fascinating."

Mark Twain came in 1867 and wrote about it in The Innocents Abroad. BTW, Twain's book is worth wading through. It's a travelogue of his experiences on a cruise and tour he took of Europe and The Holy Land with a bunch of American travelers. It alternates from pure observation to biting sarcasm to laugh out loud humor. The Innocents Abroad is still one of the most-read travelogues ever written.

Oh, something else you should know. Italians NEVER drink cappucinos after morning. If you order a cappucino after about 10am, they'll make it and bring it to you...but they'll also snicker at you when you're not looking.

Katerina