History of The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo
The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo were originally built as a simple cemetery in which to bury the monks of the adjacent monastery.
The Capuchin friars were established in Palermo in 1534, at the church of Santa Maria della Pace. At first deceased friars were buried in the cemetery but the Capuchin community grew and by 1597 the cemetery became insufficient.
Excavations were begun to create a large burial chamber behind the main altar, using the already existing ancient caves. After two years the chamber to house the remains of the friars from the overrun cemetery was complete.
When the friars exhumed the corpses they found that forty-five of their fellow friars had naturally mummified.They had not decomposed and their faces were still recognizable.
They believed that this was an act of God and, instead of burying the remains, they decided to display the bodies of their brothers as relics, propped in niches along the walls of the first corridor of the new catacombs.
The news of the bodies found intact attracted great attention. And requests from non-members of the order to be displayed in the same way came rolling in. Some requests were approved under a strict set of rules but by 1783, they decided to concede burial to anyone requesting it.
The catacombs were expanded with additional corridors created for different people, based on age, and trade. And what was once the private cemetery of the friars became a sort of museum of death.
Most of the bodies found in the Catacombs of Palermo were preserved naturally. But soon the friars perfected the art of speeding up and ensuring the mummification process by placing the bodies in a preparation room called the “colatoio”, there they removed the internal organs, and filled the cavity with straw or bay leaves in order to facilitate the process of dehydration.
The bodies were placed in a supine position on grids made of terracotta tubes, so any bodily fluids could drain away. The environment in the colatoio, was the optimal environment for mummification, with drier air and very low humidity. The bodies were then shut up for around a year for the flesh to desiccate.
When ‘ready’ the corpses were washed with vinegar and dressed, often in clothes they had chosen before death, and then they were inserted in the wall niches.
During periods of epidemics, they bathed the bodies in arsenic which also produced a sort of mummification.
In later years embalming was occasionally used to preserve corpses. The most famous example of this is the case of Rosalia Lombardo, a child of two who died in Palermo in 1920 and was embalmed by Dr. Alfredo Salafia, with amazing results: the serene face, the golden curls that fall on the forehead, the soft and relaxed skin give an incredible feeling of life so as to be considered the “world’s most beautiful mummy”.
The final burial was that of Giovanni Licata di Baucina, the count of Isnello, in 1939.
Pictures: several different mummies, Rosalia Lombardo