The dark and sinister side of Rome: private tour

Start by visiting the wonderful church of Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins. Your guide will introduce you to the church by visiting the masterpiece of Reni, the painter who created the St. Michael the Archangel in 1635.

Not to be missed is the refined and unique painting od Stigmatization of St. Francis painted by Muziano in 1570.

The Church holds many other paintings by other artists who contributed in the art history and, your guide, will highlight the most important pieces to keep up the suspance of this wonderfull tour.

Terminated this part of the tour, we will step in to the museums of the Capuchin Monks that hold hundreds of portraits of the Capuchin Monks who lived inside the monastery.

When the athmosphere gets darker, you will be getting down to the crypt where thousands of bones dominates walls, floors, ceilings arches and much more.

The crypt is located just under the church. Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who was a member of the Capuchin order, in 1631 ordered the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars exhumed and transferred from the friary Via dei Lucchesi to the crypt. The bones were arranged along the walls, 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 and 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 with the remains in elaborate fashion, making this crypt a macabre work of art. Some of the skeletons are intact and draped with Franciscan habits, but for the most part, individual bones are used to create elaborate ornamental designs.

The crypt originated at a period of a rich and creative cult for their dead; great spiritual masters meditated and preached with a skull in hand.

A plaque in one of the chapels reads, in three languages, "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be." This is amemento mori.