Palermo's Capuchin monastery has outgrown its original…
1599 CE
Palermo's Capuchin monastery has outgrown its original cemetery and monks have begun to excavate crypts below it.
In 1599, they mummify one of their number, the recently dead brother Silvestro of Gubbio, and place him into the catacombs.
This is the first of many such internments here: the bodies will be dehydrated on the racks of ceramic pipes in the catacombs and sometimes later washed with vinegar.
Some of the bodies will be embalmed and others enclosed in sealed glass cabinets.
Monks will be preserved with their everyday clothing and sometimes with ropes they had worn as a penance.
Today they provide a somewhat macabre tourist attraction as well as an extraordinary historical record.