page_title: Nibbia Chapel
section_title: Crypt
hierarchical_section_title: Nibbia Chapel / Architecture / Crypt
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: sixoneabroad00thom (find matches) Title: Six and one abroad Year: 1914 (1910s) Authors: Thomas, Sidney J., 1868- Subjects: Publisher: (Austin, Tex.) Printed by E.L. Steck Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: t reaches to the waist. Only one-tenth of the people can read and write, and thisto the shame of England, who in the past hundred years hasspent a hundred millions on her fortifications and hardly afarthing on the education of her wards. The law permits the marriage of children, and it is fre-quently the case that parents have large families before theyare themselves 21 years of age. The prevailing ignorance, thegreat density of population and early marriages contribute toan infant mortality that is appalling. Catholicism is practically the only religion that has a foot-hold on the island, and it is said that in this church there are2,000 clergy, or one to every twenty families. The Phoenicians were the first inhabitants of this minute bitof land. They were succeeded by the Romans in 259 B. C.;by the Vandals in 534 A. D.; by the Arabs in 870; by theKnights of St. John in 1530; by Napoleon in 1800, and by thsEnglish from that year to the present. The Knights of St. M Six and One Abroad Text Appearing After Image: A Semi-Colon in the Journey 45 John, or Kniijhts of INFalta, as they are best known, were or-ganized at Jerusalem in 1048 as a military and religious secretorder; they were confirmed by the Pope; removed to Rhodesin 1300, and to Malta about 1550, their numbers increasing inthe meantime and their battles on land and sea being an almostunbroken chain of victories. Their struggles were mainly di-rected against the piratical ravages of the Turks and repeatedattempts of the barbarians to overrun Europe. Their gallantryelicited the admiration of the Christian world. Under La Va-letta, the most famous of the grand masters of the secret or-der, the city bearing his name was founded and a series offortifications were begun that have long been without parallel.Two of the cardinal tenets of this order were temperance andchastity, but with the growth of power and wealth the Knightsfell from grace in these respects, and their virility as an activeforce declined. No page in history is more romantic Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: The Nibbia Chapel was a Roman Catholic chapel in Valletta, Malta, which was dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy. It was originally built in 1619 by Fra Giorgio Nibbia, a knight of the Order of St. John, and it was located near a cemetery where deceased patients from the nearby Sacra Infermeria were buried.
  The chapel was rebuilt in the Baroque style in 1731. In 1852 its crypt was decorated with skeletal human remains taken from the adjacent cemetery, giving rise to the name Chapel of Bones. The chapel was heavily damaged by aerial bombardment in 1941, and its ruins were subsequently demolished, leaving only some foundations on the site. However, the crypt might still survive intact.
context_section_description: The chapel had a vaulted underground crypt which served as an ossuary. Skeletal remains of patients who had died at the Sacra Infermeria were arranged in decorative patterns on the walls, and the crypt therefore became popularly known as the Chapel of Bones. The crypt had one altar, which had a Latin inscription lamenting the ephemerality of life and requesting prayers for the deceased.
  The exact location of the crypt has been lost, and it could have been either under the chapel itself or in the immediate vicinity. Although the chapel was destroyed during the World War II bombings, the crypt might still exist.
caption: The Chapel of Bones
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