Never thinking of a Cappuccino the Same...

It has taken several days to get around to writing this because it goes into what is undoubtedly one of the strangest things I have ever seen. Ever.

What made it even weirder is that we found it accidentally. You see, one of the great things about Rome is that there are churches everywhere. And each of these churches is historically epic – most have fantastic frescoes that would be behind glass in the States, others date from the Medieval period. Some have Byzantine mosaics, others have Bernini's. So when walking around the city, we make a game of going into as many as possible. We started out trying to go to them all, but quickly realized that wasn’t possible in a month.

S. Maria della Concezione is one such church we stumbled into. I had vaguely remembered hearing about it before, and had completely forgotten why. On the way to the main cathedral, we passed the door that lead to the crypts. We had seen crypts before, but hey, why not see a few more? So with that rationale, we went in, paid a mandatory voluntary donation to enter, and were totally shocked.

On the other hand, I then remembered why the name sounded familiar.

Decorating the walls were the bleached bones of 4,000 Capuchin monks. And it was strangely fascinating. There were six alters in all, five of which were crafted solely of human remains. There was a skull room. And a pelvis room. Vertebras and digits were tacked in ornate patterns to the arched ceilings, creating the effect of a mosaic, but in a very different medium.

In one chapel, a skeleton was hung who held the scythe of death and the scales of judgment. His frame was tacked onto the ceiling, and surrounded by rounds of vertebrae and other odds and ends. On the altar of another chapel, there were bodiless hands crossed over a shrouded dead monk. One of the hands was still covered in the shrunken flesh of its original owner.

Presiding within the swirling patterns of calcium carbonate, were shrouded monks, shrunken in death. They sort of looked like the Jawahs in the first Start Wars movie – you know, the ones who shoot the droids.

It was an oddly voyeuristic museum, like we were getting to see something we should not be seeing. The monks had begun crafting the altars in the 17th century, a practice that continued until the 1870s. Such a practice would not have been possible earlier because city ordinances forbade the burial of the deceased within the Aurelian Walls – a practice started to help keep the city free from disease.

Not only were the bones themselves off-putting, but other details added to the bizarre atmosphere. For instance the dirt that covered the ground was imported from Jerusalem and the chandeliers above our heads were crafted of femurs and other longer bones. There was something more unsettling about the use of bones as functional objects than as art. Partially because I didn’t notice that was the case until, after about 20 minutes of looking at the altars, I looked up. I think I prefer other light fixtures.

After a while, the crowd started to build and we headed back outside. Amazingly it was still a bright summer day, so we continued down the Via Veneto through the “American Ghetto” and went back to our class site visits.

But it was a strange 40-minute detour. So very strange.