Catacombe dei Cappuccini

Catacombe dei Cappuccini lies beneath a Capuchin monastery in Palermo, with underground corridors carved from tuff stone. The galleries preserve mummified bodies and human skeletons.

Friars created this burial space when the monastery ran out of traditional burial room. Later, outsiders also sought burial among the Capuchin remains. Distinct sections separate men, women, children, virgins, religious figures, and secular people within the corridors. Glass coffins hold some preserved remains along the underground route. Other bodies rest on shelves, while some hang upright against walls, creating the appearance of standing figures. Clothing shows religious roles and social distinctions among the people preserved here. Drying chambers and treatments involving vinegar formed part of the local preservation process for these bodies.

Palermo’s burial customs appear through preserved bodies, garments, and the arrangement of corridors. The catacombs record Sicilian beliefs and social practices from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries through visible human remains. Writers Alexandre Dumas, Guy de Maupassant, and Carlo Levi visited this unusual Palermo site. The galleries resemble streets lined with the departed. This arrangement explains the old description of a city of the dead.