The Beauty of Bones; An Experience

Savina Villani

Staff Writer

My most memorable experience in Rome was visiting the Capuchin ossuary, a lesser-known treasure of the city. It was made by a monk of the  Capuchin religious order, the name derived from the Italian word cappuccino, which means “hood,” a major characteristic of their brown habits.

The Capuchins were founded by Matteo Bassi as a minor Franciscan order in 1525. This was not a schismatic deviation from the original values of St. Francis of Assisi. Rather, it was an attempt to return more fully to those familiar Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience established in 1209. These friars were to own nothing, obtaining temporal goods only by begging and receiving only by others’ generosity.

Despite these strict rules, one anonymous Capuchin monk created intricate decorations in the crypt underneath the Church of Saint Mary of the Conception in Rome, where they buried the bodies of their brethren in the 17th century.

One might wonder at how a monk owning nothing could gain the means to design something so memorable, like the ornate decorations of a palace or church. Yet this unknown monk was able to create extraordinary art using something shocking: human bones.

Initially, the crypt was disturbing to walk into; the anonymous Capuchin monk had nailed thousands of the blackened bones onto the crypt’s walls and ceiling, creating a labyrinthine design that left visitors speechless.

Spinal bones were used to create circles that burst like fireworks from the ceiling; femurs, to outline arches; ribs and fingers, to create plant figures; skulls, to outline the monks’ skeletons dressed in their habits. In one room, the fully assembled skeletons of three children were prominently displayed in front. In another room was an hourglass with wings of shoulder blades––a symbol of the expression, “time flies.”

The mere idea of using bones to decorate a room seems detestable. However, in the context of the Capuchin religious order, it best communicates the monk’s message.

This is not because the Capuchins love death––rather, they have no fear of it. The Capuchins believe that the fear of death is a species of vanity which keeps them tied to temporal things, rather than granting them freedom to encounter God. They work to eliminate the fear of death, in the same way that they eliminate the attachment to personal belongings, as a method of finding true freedom from this temporal-spatial world.

To them, death is not an apprehensive or terrifying force as is often depicted in today’s media. Instead, the Capuchins see death as a window into heaven which liberates them from temporal vanities.

In St. Francis’ famous “Canticle of the Creatures,” he sings, “Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will, for the second death shall do them no harm.” While the sentiment of a harmless death is a rather moving one, the Capuchin crypt intensifies it as a playfulness with death.

Through his wonderful designs of the crypt, the anonymous monk created a work that demonstrates that even death––the most feared and despised part of this temporal life––is beautiful in an ineffably puzzling way.