page_title: Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
section_title: Cimitero dei Cappuccini: The Capuchin Crypt
hierarchical_section_title: Order of Friars Minor Capuchin / History / Cimitero dei Cappuccini: The Capuchin Crypt
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Cripta di Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini
context_page_description: The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is a religious order of Franciscan friars within the Catholic Church, one of two "First Orders" that sprang from the Franciscan Friars Minor Observant, the other being the Conventuals. The Capuchins arose in 1525 with the purpose of returning to a more strict observance of the rule established by Francis of Assisi in 1209.
context_section_description: The crypt is located just under the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome, a church commissioned by Pope Urban VIII in 1626. The pope's brother, Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who was of the Capuchin Order, in 1631 ordered the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars exhumed and transferred from the friary on the Via dei Lucchesi to the crypt. The bones were arranged along the walls in varied designs, and the friars began to bury their own dead here, as well as the bodies of poor Romans whose tomb was under the floor of the present Mass chapel. Here the Capuchins would come to pray and reflect each evening before retiring for the night.
  The crypt, or ossuary, now contains the remains of 4,000 friars buried between 1500–1870, during which time the Roman Catholic Church permitted burial in and under churches. The underground crypt is divided into five chapels, lit only by dim natural light seeping in through cracks, and small fluorescent lamps. The crypt walls are decorated extensively with the remains, depicting various religious themes. Some of the skeletons are intact and draped with Franciscan habits, but for the most part, individual bones are used to create the elaborate ornamental designs.
  A plaque in the chapel reads:
  What you are now, we used to be.
  What we are now, you will be.
  Mark Twain visited the crypt in the summer of 1867, and begins Volume 2, Chapter 1, of The Innocents Abroad with five pages of his observations.
caption: The remains of 4,000 friars adorn the ossuary of the Santa Maria della Concezione
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