Amid all the spectacles of Rome, there is one place that has no equal – especially on Halloween!
The Capuchin Crypt, comprising several tiny chapels is located beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. It contains the skeletal remains of 4,000 bodies believed to be Capuchin friars buried by their order.
As monks died during the lifetime of the crypt, the longest-buried monk was exhumed to make room for the newly-deceased who was buried without a coffin, and the newly-reclaimed bones were added to the decorative motifs.
Perhaps the most evocative description of the crypt was put down by Nathaniel Hawthorne in “The Marble Faun.”
Caput Mundi
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Pure Ornament
Mural Guild