The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-07-04
sepulchral Shows in Palermo.

connected Win the convent OF SdnJO
Spirito are two vaulted galleries, in
which are kept the skeletons of certain
noted persons. The anatomies are at
tired in the garments they wore in the
flesh, and exposed in cases and collins
covered with glass. A ghastlier exhibit
ton could not be devised and as you
come suddenly upon it, you are more
revolted than if you had been gradually
led up to the dismal display. The OBJ
iect is devotional, of course. To wean
you from the living it is deemed desir-
able to disgust you with the dead.
What is the good of death, I should
like to know, if we are to have our re-
mains rendered repulsive The skele-
tons are tricked out in the tawdriest
finery, and the contrast between gay
clothes and grave plumber would be
shocking to a mind not capable of see
ing the grim humor of the thing.
On one side is the remnant of an army
officer gaudily adorned, his osseous APP
pearance clearly indicating, notwith-
standing his fine clothes, that he is in
no condition to receive company. Not
far away is what was once a woman
sadly out of repair at present-in a
Glove of bonnet" the ribbons lying
upon her cervical vertebra On the
bOny fingers of late, very late, leader
of society are white kid gloves, and her
tibie and fibulae are covered with en-
brOidered silk hose. Some of the grin
ming skulls induce you to believe they
are enjoying the drollery of the situa-
ton, and intimating by silent chuckle
that they are vastly better off than the
spectators.
The Sicilians never suspect that their
show is funny; and I question if its
comic element would be detected by
any one but an American. Palermo is
not the place for it. It ought to be re-
moved over here. 1t would draw in
Sacramento or San Francisco, and large
bets would be taken on the relative
ugliness of the different skeletons, leav-
ing the question to be decided by the
gentlemen in the coffins.
Several of the feminine departed may
suggest other decayed ladies, who not
only refuse to be buried, but try to
hoodwink you by pretending they are
still young. They may insinuate they
are the counterfeits of animated social
antiques of your external acquaintance,
minus their toilet and the artful marVels
out of which they are created.
At the Capuchin Convent, on the
other side of Palermo, near the Elsa
Palace, the mortuary specimens are still
more curious. A great many bodies of
both sexes re preserved there, having
been embalmed after death by a pecu-
liar process, part of which consists of
exposure 90 running water for several
months. Every monk of st. Francis
who has died in Palermo is deposited
in those gloomy vaults, the light falling
from small upper windows across the
groined arches. The ghostly friars are
dressed in the habit of their order, and
either laid away on shelves, or fastened
against the walls in upright position.
There is an air of sportiveness in the
desicated old fellows which they never
suspect. Some of them wear their
hoods, and others are bare-headed,
showing the tonsure that marks their
priestly Office. Death is rarely 1udic-
rous, nor are its surroundings and asso-
Citations of the sort to inspire mirth.
But l defy any man possessing the
smallest vein of humor, however I'M
worked, to go through those catacombs
and examine the mummified without
laughing inwardly or Outwardly. The
mode of embalming has given many of
the monks decidedly queer and wag-
gish look. They were saturnists in life,
and they are involuntary testers in
death. Beyond the grave they lost
their gravity; after sepulcure they
ceased to be sepulchral. None of
them are erect indeed, they incline at
as many angles as the houses of Am
sterdam-and they are grouped together
very grotesquely. A number would
serve as illustrations of different stages
of ebriety, from the flush of elevation
to staggeringly stupid intoxication
They lean upon one another after the
manner of incapacitated topers, they
pitch forward, they stretch backward
like monastic Toodleses, and you expect
every minute to hear them ask in hol-
low tones for dozen fagons of Lacryma
Christi.-Harper'S Magazine.