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ShareSituated a short distance from the Spanish Steps, on Rome’s Via Veneto, the Convent of the Capuchin Monks houses one of the Eternal City’s most disturbing displays: a subterranean crypt cemetery adorned with the bones of its former friars.
The six macabre cells that underlie the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Concezione. showcase the remains of nearly 4,000 Capuchin friars. For the convent’s friars, it served as a Memento Mori. A reminder of mortality. One of the many thought-provoking artworks depicting our transience on Earth found throughout the Eternal City.
Warning: Rome’s Capuchin Crypt is not for the faint-hearted.
Within the five rooms running along its 30-metre corridor, you’ll find the osseous remains of more than 3,700 deceased monks — a sinister scene that will stay with you for life.
Skulls, femurs, and other skeletal remains have been arranged into elaborate patterns, forming chandeliers, arches, and even clocks (for spectators rather than inhabitants).
Getting to the Capuchin Crypt
If you’re taking public transport, the easiest way to get to the Capuchin Crypt is to take the Metro A Line to Barberini Station (it’s less than a one-minute walk from the station exit).
Several bus lines also pass by the crypt, stopping off at Barberini (Ma). Check Google Maps to plan your route and see which means of transport is most convenient.
Visiting Rome’s Capuchin Crypt
The museum and crypt are open daily from 10 am – 7 pm. A visit should take about 30 minutes.
Tickets cost €10 for adults, with a discounted rate (€6.50) for children, students under 25, people over 65, and clerics. Tickets can be purchased online or directly at the convent.
Please be aware that photography is strictly forbidden within the Capuchin Crypt. Also make sure to dress appropriately for a sacred site, with shoulders and knees covered and no offensive logos.
Rome’s Other Bone Churches
The Church of Orazione e Morte, which we pass by on our Ghost Tour, is another candidate for Rome’s “Bone Church.” Dating from the sixteenth century, it was built on top of an old cemetery envisaged for the Christian burial of abandoned corpses.
Adorning the church’s main façade are festoons, skulls, pilaster strips and macabre symbols and artworks. The most noticeable are two plaques, one which depicts a winged skeleton with the Latin motto Hodie mihi, cras tibi (Today to me, tomorrow to you) and another which shows seated death, holding a winged hourglass while watching a man in the throes of death.
On Rome’s Tiber Island, the Church of San Bartolomeo all’Isola is also known as the Bone Church on account of the subterranean cemetery that occupies its crypt. Since the late eighteenth century, the church has been the seat of the “Venerable Brotherhood of devotees of Jesus Christ on Calvary and Mary Most Holy of Sorrows,” which obtained permission from Pope Pius VI Braschi to create a cemetery for the deceased brothers in the basement.
During the burial, these men wore a red cloak with a hood, leading them to be locally known as the Sacconi Rossi. They recovered the corpses found in the River Tiber whose bones they defleshed before laying them to rest in the crypt of the convent.
