At the front entrance to the church is a Latin inscription which translates to: "Here lies dust, ashes, nothing". Personally, it would seem as though the church suffers from a bad ad campaign, but maybe that's just me.

Another warning is inscribed nearby which says: "Memento Mori" which means "Remember that you must die".

This is a small (for Rome) Capuchin chapel that used to have a large cemetery behind it. During one of Rome's many growth periods, around 1632, it was decided that the dead would have to make way for the living, and the cemetery was excavated.

History would say that lack of land space created the need for the initial crypt below the chapel. The handbill given to visitors of the chapel gives a slightly contradictory message which suggests that visitors should recall that the origins of this church come from a time when monks, priests, and even the Pope, used to preach with a skull in their hand.

In fact, that statement is true, but misleading. Yes, some DID have a skull, or some bones on hand while preaching or meditating, but it's not as though that was considered standard behavior at the time. It also seems convenient that the outdoor cemetery was also taken away by the cities' rulers of the time, creating the need for the basement crypts. To me, it almost seems as though the church is making excuses for its own horrific interior.

An interesting side note is that the church handbills are quick to remind us that when Pope Pius IX was younger, he was known to keep a skull beside him in the pulpit while delivering sermons. One time, he actually doused a femur (thigh bone) in alcohol and set it ablaze during his sermon, "to illustrate the terrors of hell". It should be noted that he was born in 1846, some 200 years after the cemetery was "converted" so to use him as an example seems a bit odd. I would suggest that if anything, he may have gotten the idea from THEM, rather than the other way around. Using actual human remains in that fashion certainly makes a powerful statement. I wish I was allowed to do that kinda' stuff at MY work, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be viewed quite the same way.

In any event, rather than trying to re-use old coffins, it was decided that the bodies, since most were presumably already skeletonized anyways, would look MUCH nicer being strewn about the walls and ceilings in an artistic fashion.

So, the corpses of 4000 monks were utilized as artwork. It's a natural progression, please keep up!

Some sources claim that 300 cartloads of remains were used to clear the original graveyard, and that the artistic endeavor was a continuing effort for 250 years with new friars being added upon their deaths. I guess it was part of their monk benefit's package?

The crypt is divided into 5 chapels that appear to have been conceptually laid out by 5 different monks, each with their own morbid decorating theme in mind. I can't help but wonder if any of them got a prize for their specific chapel when it was all done.

The "art" is of fairly Eastern design, and seems to primarily comprise of basic mandalas. To me, it doesn't appear that a true artist was at work there, simply because everything seems a bit too "basic" for lack of a better term.

It's almost like: "Gee.. lets take a few of the skulls and stick 'em on the wall and put crossed bones beneath them in the shape of an 'x'... Who would EVER come up with such a thing?...Hey we'll refer to them as 'skull & crossbones' for short."

and.. "Wow, we got about 7 corpses here that are in pretty decent shape (comparatively). Let's stand 'em up in their robes and lean them out at people.. that'll get 'em! Oops! this one won't stand up right, let's have some of them recline, and we'll build bone arches over them, and use that little skull-and-crossbone thing you came up with as a center point!"

Most of the ceiling decorations are based upon symmetrical circles of vertebraes, reminiscent of yellowed lace against the light blue sky color of the ceiling. The wall decorations also include the requisite stacks of bones looking for all the world like stacked firewood. There's also stacked hip bones which look oddly like a stack of stone figs. Another odd thing about it is that one chapel seems to concentrate on skulls, another on pelvic bones, another on skulls, and one is a mismash of bones. Meaning that some monks are apparently distributed into the 5 different chapels.

It would seem as though the ceiling work for the first chapel was laid out before the other chapels were started. It really DOES have an impressive sense to it with recreations of architectural details made with the bones. The second chapel followed suit, but with more circular motifs. The following 3 chapels had less and less architectural features on the ceiling, as though they were running out of bones, or planning for more, or something.

The most famous part of the crypt is also it's most obvious decoration. It seems a bit much, considering the fact that while standing there, you're already surrounded by thousands of hollowed out eyes gazing back at you. In the center of the 5th chapel's ceiling is a grim reaper complete with a bone scythe, but without a cloak, surrounded in circles of vertebrae. The nice touch though is that the chapels were then dedicated to: "Our Sister, Bodily Death". Which reminds us that the Grim Reaper is supposed to be a chick. A lot of folks forget about that (including Piers Anthony in his absolutely compelling book entitled: "Death Rode a Pale Horse", which is most assuredly required reading).

It should be noted, however, that correctly mounting a skeleton at that time must have been quite a challenge, despite all the other bodies lying around to learn where everything goes. It's certainly a learned artform, just ask any taxidermist.

This church is believed to be the first of its kind by many, but in reality, no one's sure because a lot of them cropped up right around the same time, and I can only assume that some were started while others were already in the process of doing this kind of thing. Still, this one typically receives credit for being the original that other churches have copied from.

Oddly enough, the chapels don't really create a sense of reverence, and the best summation I've found for it is what someone overheard a female vistor from Kentucky, saying as she left: "Lordy, that's gonna' cause SOME confusion on Judgement day." Referring to the Bible's book of Revelations which says that God will pull the dead from their graves.

Another worthy overheard statement was in regard to the musty & dusty air that seems to permeate the chapels: "Uhh.. What, exactly, are we breathing in here?"

On death and immortality.....a personal view
In the Reaper Room there's an inscription which reads: "As you are now, we once were. As we are now, you will soon be." This is now almost a familiar catch phrase for me, having seen it upon countless grave stones. Even my friend Eric Avant's band, "Yeti," has that phrase on the back of one of their T-shirts below a picture of a partially unearthed skeleton.

Does the phrase mean anything to you? It should. You comprise of bones almost identical to the ones shown here, just as these bones once worked within bodies that were nearly identical to yours. These skulls also held dreams and hopes, that, at least a basic sense, were similar to the ones you have now. Eventually, you will join the ranks of the dead, and, unless cremated and your bones are ground to dust and placed in an urn somewhere, you will eventually be nothing more than bone. It's a simple fact of life that is completely overlooked in our culture here in the United States. There IS no "later", there is no "eventually", there is even no guarantee of a "soon"; you've got now, and you had yesterday, but that's about it.

We, as living things, will die when our times are up, and that's that. Only the extremely famous, and/or notorious, will even be remembered for more than 90 years (at the maximum) after our deaths.

However, everything we do and say, while alive, affects everyone else around us. For example, even if I died tommorrow, I know that I've affected my stepson, Jordan, in ways that will dictate how he views, interprets, and interacts with the world for the rest of his life. That's good, and that's bad, no one's perfect, but in that manner, even though not of my own flesh and blood, he'll carry me forward in a diluted fashion that he will, however unwittingly, pass on to the next generation.

That's a dramatic example merely used to illustrate a point, but it actually works on even seemingly innocent levels. For example, whenever a new issue of the NPCR came out, I was generally among the first to find it (before it was even linked to the site for everyone to find). I used to look through it, and read the articles, with an open email right next to it. I'd go through and pick out anything that appeared to be unclear, or mis-typed, or whatever, and put it all in the email and send it back to Nolan for his review. It wasn't an attempt to find flaw with Nolan, on the contrary, it was the fact I liked reading the PCR and wanted to help Nolan keep it free from distracting errors, and/or improve it, or whatever. Well, now it would seem that those types of errors are a lot less frequent, and have almost disappeared altogether. When speaking to Nolan about it he said that he had a tendency (when time was availible) to read through the articles as though he were me; to look at it as I would, and catch the stuff that I'd normally catch.

Ironically, although it's a good example of how my anal attention to detail has "rubbed off" on him slightly, it's an even better example of how my father's attention to detail has passed to me, and now onto Nolan, whom he's never even met, and never spoken to, aside from the ocassional phone greeting before he'd get me to the phone when I used to live there. My father has said that he got it from his mother, but who knows where it came from before that.

The point is, it's a trait that must have come from someone, that's been rubbed off on others. It's our immortality at work, but it's sort of an unheralded impersonal immortality that does not directly bear a name, or a face, with the actual trait, nor does it usually even stick out as an inheirited item. That's part of the value within these chapels of death. These skulls represent our ancestors, directly, or not, with no names attached.

As a generic part of ancestry, you can curse them for not having the sense to avoid creating machines that polluted our environment, or curse them for having too many children which had even more children, creating overpopulation, perhaps even curse them for allowing slavery to occur. Or you can thank them, for passing along the information needed to preserve recorded historic events, and/or setting science upon the path to discovery, for experiencing the things that our ancestors learned from, or for merely giving birth to the folks that gave birth to us.

Either way you want to look at it is immaterial, they, just like you, have only one lifespan to operate within: Death is the great common denominator that all must answer to. They faced choices, they put off decisions, they laughed at funny jokes, they put up with the bad, and enjoyed the good, they are you, with time and conditions being the only significant difference between you.

Any other differences can be attributed to how they decided to live their life: how helpful they were to others, or how much of a bastard they were. Other factors, like how some may have had innate talents, or unusually high intelligence for their time, or may have been completely insane, is completely useless, it's nothing to anyone now. The things that count are how they put those talents to use, or how they decided not to, or how they acted despite a lack of any talent. Be it Ceasar, Hitler, Manson, Marilyn Monroe, Ghandi, J.F. Kennedy, Einstein, Churchhill, Napolean, Elvis, Roosevelt, Lucas, O.J. Simpson, or Lorena Bobbit, how they affected others are the things that will truly measure a person in the big picture of life, and in the history books.

That's the key. The answer to life itself is in your grasp. This time is yours, make the best of it because it too will fade into the shadows of the past, it simply has to. Do you want to be remembered? Inspire someone, or make them feel something. The more people you reach, the greater the effect. Anyone who knows Nolan personally, will never forget him, likewise anyone who knows of Bill Gates will never forget him, either. For different reasons, but mainly because of how they've affected those they come into contact with. Some will be remembered more fondly than others, for one reason or another, but both will be remembered by the people whose lives they affected.

Ever heard the phrase that "everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time"? Here's a better one, "everyone was born, and everyone is going to die." I cheated on the pants leg thing when I was little, and used to put both feet in my pants, and then hop up and down while I got my pants on, but I can guarantee you all that there's no cheating on the other one.