Rosalia Lombardo

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Rosalia Lombardo is a resident of the catacombs, she was Italian born in 1918 and died December 6th, 1920. General Lombardo was so upset upon her death he went to a noted embalmer, Alfredo Salafia, in order to preserve her. Her body was one of the last ones to have been admitted to the catacombs in Sicily.

His technique was good enough that her body could be x-rayed and the organs show up. Her body is kept in a small glass covered coffin and placed on a marble pedestal. Unfortunately a 2009 photograph by the National Geographic shows that she is beginning to show signs of decomposition, most noticeably is the colour. So to combat this she was moved to a drier location in the catacombs. Her original coffin has also been placed in a sealed one to try and prevent any further deterioration.

National Geographic Link

Paris Catacombs

They have a pretty long story but I am going to try and summarise the main and interesting points, they are an underground ossuary located to the south of the former city gate. The catacombs hold around 6 million peoples remains   and are the old stone mines, they have had to be monitored due to prior vandalism.

Like many cities that had their Christian dead buried in the consecrated city grounds Paris suffered overcrowding. The dead who were poor were mass buried to ensure that they tried to ease it but by the 17th Century it was all too much and they needed a new method.

New cemeteries were built, larger scaled ones that could accommodate more dead and the abandoned stone mines were chosen so that they could arrange to exhume the dead, and transfer them into the newly appointed catacombs. To begin with the catacombs were just a bone depository but eventually the stones, tomb and bones were arranged into decorations.

During August 1788 the riots from three areas meant that more bodies were brought into the catacombs. Val-de-gráce’s doorkeeper, Phillibert Aspairt, was lost in the catacombs in 1793, his body was found 11 years later and his tomb is at the spot where his body was found. Some of the graffiti there dates back to the 18th Century, Parisian members of the French Revolution also used them too.

Unfortunately it’s not all good, due to the catacombs being under the Paris streets it means that they cannot build any large foundations. And of course the catacombs are a hot-spot of hauntings.

The mummified halls…

Italy

The bodies of over 8000 souls line the catacombs of Cappuchin, Palermo. This sounds like one of the most interesting yet macabre places I have heard of in some time.

They wanted the bodies to be preserved for the living to face the dead. Tourists are able to walk the halls. The bodies were drained, dried and stuffed in straw in the vaults underneath for around nine months.

Initially they were for the monks but slowly patrons came. They were organised by gender, class and age.  The Cardinals, Lawyers, Children, Infants are all ordered amongst the line ups.

In 1860 the practise was outlawed, 1920 a body was brought in, Rosalia Lombardo was brought in by her family. Her sister would visit regularly but this stopped in recent years.

Many that visit will turn away upset, horrified or perhaps just overwhelmed by looking death in the face quite literally.  I won’t post up pictures and videos, but if you are interested the link here that takes you to more information.

Sedlec Ossuary 

Originally it was a series of large pits with bodies… a lot of them, and I am going to guess it stank! Human remains just stacked wherever they could put them and monks needed to do something with them all.

They came up with quite a unique way of solving the problem, they made displays from all the bones, keeping them in the boundary of the cemetery and it’s building. Bone pyramids were the beginning from a half-blind monk’s orders to find a way to dispose of them.

An architect then made candelabra to fit in with it. A rich family then brought it and it was redecorated. Now there are garlands and hanging decor from them, some of them are extremely creative if not a little odd.  A huge hanging chandelier makes a morbidly amazing central piece too.

Take a Virtual Visit via this site