It is not the Cathedral, of course
Next to the church Santa Maria della Pace in Palermo, Sicily , all you have to do is go down a few steps to find yourself immersed in a curious spectacle: a kind of cave with signs to guide you among the dead where the tourist and the morbid do not shake hands, but directly embrace and confuse.
What happened to the friars who had this obsession with the mortal body, unusual even among members of the church? In the catacombs of the Capuchins, probably the rarest attraction in Palermo, skulls and human bones are not used as decorative elements as in the Roman catacombs, but directly the mummified bodies are exposed - some in better condition than others - dressed in their original clothes . Between the 17th and 19th centuries, eight thousand people from Palermo found their final resting place here. After their death they were subjected to a mummification and drying process that helped preserve the body. Later they were hung in the crypt dressed in their best clothes.
Skulls for all tastes
this visit attracts people with different interests ; some will find it terrifying, all unforgettable.
- For those who want an extra dose of creepy on Halloween, this is the perfect destination : Now that the holiday seems to have settled on the calendar of pagan celebrations even outside the United States, destinations that mix the grotesque, the terrifying and the uncomfortable are in vogue. No need to clarify, but this place can be pretty badass . It helps, no doubt, that although some corpses are lying down, most hang vertically, seeming to form a macabre procession that accompanies the visitor.
- For trendsetters: if one abstracts from the corpses that the clothes wrap, It is a great place to check the evolution of fashion . We are not dealing with reproductions but with the real garments worn by the corpses in life. Frock coats, top hats and bustles have been preserved much better than the bodies they cover. The religious robes maintain their gold and the Napoleonic hats their handsomeness.
- For those who went to see "Bodies" and didn't know much about it: the encounter with the girl Rosalía Lombardo, locked up in her urn, surpasses the vision of the corpses of the controversial exhibition of didactic alibi and mercantilist purposes. She died in 1920 with only two years, in her embalming a mysterious technique was used that has kept her intact for almost a century, as if she were asleep. It is difficult to maintain cynicism in her presence, here you will rather oscillate between a mixture of sorrow and discomfort.
- For those interested in sociology: the contemplation of corpses can give rise to interesting reflections on how the concept of “eternal rest” has changed over the centuries. Although at first only the Capuchin friars ended up here, over the years it became a disputed final destination for the upper classes of Palermo . That is, the dead (or their relatives) wanted to remain in the air and exposed to view, something that in these times of "let my ashes be thrown into the sea" is, to say the least, shocking. In addition, the hackneyed idea that death equals us all is dismantled here: the corpses are rigorously separated between men and women and by their social and professional status. Virgin women, the military and those belonging to liberal professions do not mix in the crypt , in a curious prolongation of the division by classes and sexes that extends beyond life.