Creepy Crypt Under Church Keeps Bones of 4,000 Friars on Display

Under a church in Rome is a crypt with the human remains of over 4,000 friars whose individual bones were painstakingly arranged in ornamental designs of macabre art. The church, Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins, is also called Santa Maria della Concezione and was designed by Antonio Casoni. Friars’ clothing were put on mummified monks and hung from the walls and ceiling. The Capuchin Crypt is a famous ossuary, or final resting place of skeletal remains, and is said to have once rivaled the Catacombs as a popular tourist destination. The 4,000 friars’ bones were collected between 1528 and 1870. A plaque in the crypt reads: “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.” This creepy crypt has several rooms including a crypt of skulls, a crypt of leg bones, and a crypt of pelvises.