Sep 27th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Vertebrae rosettes. A crown of thorns made from finger bones. An arch of skulls.
Three skeletons of children lean huddled in a group as if to comfort one another. Behind them hangs an hourglass made of pelvis bones. Above soars the skeleton of a youth bearing a scythe of clavicles and scales made of kneecaps. Dirt and gravestones cover the floor. Mummified bodies wearing the cowled robes of ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
vacationwiththedead posts
The triumph of Death: the mummified monks of Rome's Capuchin Crypt
Sep 27th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Vertebrae rosettes. A crown of thorns made from finger bones. An arch of skulls.
Three skeletons of children lean huddled in a group as if to comfort one another. Behind them hangs an hourglass made of pelvis bones. Above soars the skeleton of a youth bearing a scythe of clavicles and scales made of kneecaps. Dirt and gravestones cover the floor. Mummified bodies wearing the cowled robes of ...Saints' relics in Rome
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 11:30AM:
Everywhere you go in Rome, there are body parts on display.
The churches are full of them, and people travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to see them. They're the mortal remains of saints and apostles and are venerated as holy relics.
Relics were big business in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Every church wanted some because it meant pilgrims would come visit, and pilgrims meant ...The catacombs of Rome
Sep 17th, 2010 at 12:00PM:
"There were 500,000 people buried here," my guide whispers.
She leads me down a dimly lit, narrow passage that seems to go on forever. To either side the rough walls are lined with small niches.
"These are where the bodies were kept. There are twenty kilometers of tunnels, and while most of the tombs are now empty, some are still unopened."
We are in the Catacombs of Domitilla, one of ...Military museums in Rome
Sep 16th, 2010 at 12:00PM:
The Italian army gets a bad rap.
Sure, it made a poor showing in World War Two, but it was Italian Communist partisans who finally bagged Mussolini. Plus the Italians fought in one of the toughest fronts of the First World War, high in the Alps against the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. They endured freezing conditions on top of glaciers for months on end. One of the favorite tactics was to ...The tombs of Rome--where art meets death
Sep 15th, 2010 at 10:30AM:
If you're going to your eternal rest in the Eternal City, you should go in style.
Sure, you can't take it with you, but you can show off what you had, and with all the competition in this place you have to do something special to make an impression. Rome is filled with grandiose monuments to the dead. First there are the giant tombs and temples of the Roman emperors. They were worshiped as ...The Purgatory Museum
Sep 14th, 2010 at 10:00AM: I'm not sure what I'm looking at.
A rectangular slab of wood bears two burn marks--one in the shape of a cross, the other resembles a human hand. Nearby are other items--a shirt, a prayer book, a pillow--all with burns that look like they've been made by fiery fingers.
I'm in Rome's smallest and strangest museum, the Piccolo Museo del Purgatorio, the Little Museum of Purgatory. Housed in the ...
