Five ghoulish haunts: Italian style

October 30, 3:45 PMItaly Culture & Travel ExaminerLucia Mauro

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Paleo-Christian graveyard, Milan.

Regardless of how many figurative skeletons Italians might keep well stored in their decorative armoires, the country freely displays real human bones inside just about every church. The sight of somber, glass-encased craniums and their ossified appendages is so common they cease to be ghoulish - just a natural part of the life cycle. But I've singled out five particularly macabre monuments that take confronting one's mortality to new heights...or depths, depending on how you look at it.

Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini (St. Mary of the Conception of the Capuchins) - Rome

This unassuming Baroque church, on the posh Via Veneto near Piazza Barberini, houses quite an elaborate equalizing force: a crypt containing the bones of more than 4,000 Capuchin friars between 1528 and 1870. But this is no ordinary display of ecclesiastical corpses. It's a museum of magnificent ossuary art closely linked to the once-popular cult-of-the-dead phenomenon in Roman Catholicism. Besides the skeletons of monks propped up in their coffee-colored robes, each room - nay, themed gallery - features skulls, vertebrae, pelvic bones, jaw bones and femurs shaped  into mesmerizing mosaic-like wall decorations, lamps and hour glasses. Ultimately, this graphic crypt celebrates the resurrected soul. And despite the B-horror-movie connotations (one about flying brains comes to mind), this concept is most evident in the shape of a skull adorned with shoulder-blade bones for wings.

Convento dei Cappucccini (Capuchin Monastery) - Palermo

The Capuchin Order certainly had a fixation on death in all its stages of rot. This Sicilian chamber of horrors contains not only bones, but also more than 8,000 leathery corpses in varying degrees of decay. The phenomenon is linked to the arid conditions in the monastery that helped usher in an unconventional form of mummification (dating from the late 16th century). Squeamishness aside, there's a humorous theatricality to the way these bodies (dressed in fine gowns, waistcoats and bowler hats) are arranged: Professionals, Bishops, Virgins, etc. Even the painter Velasquez hangs among the grinning and grimacing visages, whose skin has hardened to the texture of beef jerky. Most unsettling yet strangely beautiful, though, is the glass coffin holding Baby Rosalia Lombardo, the fully preserved (and very tender-looking) corpse of a two-year-old girl who died in 1920. The Capuchin Monastery has a counterpart in El Museo de las Momias in Guanajuato, Mexico (which, incidentally, I also had the opportunity to visit).

Basilica di Sant'Eustorgio - Milan

Far from chic or fashionable, Milan's low-vaulted 13th century basilica, along the route to the city's canal-and-footbridge Navigli District, contains beneath its foundations an eerie Paleo-Christian necropolis. The original church (dating from the Fourth Century) was best known for guarding the bones of the Three Wise Men, which were later relocated to Cologne. But, fear not, there are bones aplenty in this subterranean graveyard once used as a secret meeting place for early Christians to hold mass and bury their dead. The ceilings are so low, I explored the cemetery in a chronically stooped state and, at one point, nearly tumbled into an open grave where the skeleton of a young Roman girl lay in perfect symmetry.

Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala (Hospital of St. Mary of the Stairs) - Siena

Across from Siena's shimmering mosaic Duomo stands a richly multilayered building that served as a hospital, beginning in the 13th century. But delve deeper inside, beyond the quaint fresco cycles and statuary, and you'll discover a series of winding chambers and vaults sloping downward. At the long-winded Oratory of the Company of Saint Mary under the vault of the hospital and the Society of the Executors of Pious Dispositions, visitors essentially walk into a Vincent Price movie. In this dark and dank chamber, with black-shrouded tables and a blue ceiling painted with gold stars, a chill ran down my spine. It was a restless energy perhaps connected to the fact that this room was once used to perform "acts of piety for the dead." Outside, a rotting brown skull spoke to me from an inscribed plaque: "I look at you and see what I once was; you look at me and see what you shall become." Inspiring words.

Castel del Monte - Andria

My husband and I did not come across any skeletal remains here, but musty castles often conjure up images of vampires and ghosts. This imposing castle, built in 1250 by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, looms with solitary authority over Italy's southern Puglia region. Looted of most of its décor, it seems itself a ghost of its once-potent glory. But the vacant structure certainly feels connected to the Age of Sorcery, as the castle was constructed in multiples of eight - hence, it's also known as the octagonal castle. My only hope was that those magic numbers did not hold the formula for entering Hades or some other abominable place, where lost souls reside.

Following are links to my Examiner stories that provide more detailed accounts of some of these strange and gruesome sights:

Palermo, Siena, Castel del Monte

END

For more info: Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini (St. Mary of the Conception of the Capuchins) - Rome

Convento dei Cappucccini (Capuchin Monastery) - Palermo

Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala (Hospital of St. Mary of the Stairs) - Siena

Castel del Monte - Andria