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A great many people are incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of death, and installations like this, and similar works of art, are a great antidote. Accepting death as the price of life might be a bit difficult for people raised in a culture that worships perpetual youth and which dreams of immortality, perhaps in the form of a digital silicon upload, but it's really a sign of maturity.
Taking a minute or so out of every day to meditate upon the inevitablity of your own death is good for one's mental health - and can be motivating. If there's something you want to do, do it now - tomorrow is not guaranteed!
Paris Catacombs are also amazing for this. First few skeletons are yikes. Next 50 are unsettling. Next 500 are sobering. Next 5,000 start to be kind of interesting, starting to notice variations in bone and joint shapes. Next 50,000 start to resemble the other people walking with you, just more naked. It’s a good experience.
I don't know about you but seeing a big pile of skeletons in a basement mainly serves to confirm the ideas about death that I already had.
It's also kind of misleading because they're not complaining but dying is actually pretty awful unless you're really, really lucky.
"Who promised you tomorrow?" - St. Alphonsus Liguori, Preparation for Death
Personally, I find a lot of truth in what you say but I vehemently disagree with the premise that we should accept death as the price of life.
Of course, we need to be realistic and acknowledge that everyone living will all almost certainly die one day but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for a future without death.
I think that CGP Grey's video, Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, does a wonderful job arguing this viewpoint.
> death as the price of life
IMO this is still casting it in an uncomfortable way. IMO it is much healthier to think of death as the reward for life, the final rest from the toils of living. The idea is to put them on equal footing as they are part of the same process and you should look forward to death as much as you look forward to living.
There are some cultures that believe the remains of their ancestors are sacred. How would you encourage them to accept your POV?
> digital silicon upload
What is this a reference to?
Beautiful place. The crypt includes a quote that really resonates with you - translated to English - "you are what we were; you will be what we are"
Reminds me of some lines in the final stanza of Tennyson's Ulysses:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' / We are not now that strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
“Look alive, see these bones
What you are now, we were once
But just like we are, you'll be dust
And just like we are, permanent”
-Nada Surf “See These Bones”
Truly beautiful place, and one of the more interesting museums I visited in Rome in terms of artifacts and such on display.
I've heard a perhaps more poetic version: as you are, so was I; as I am, so will you.
The previous skeletons, which were rendered in traditional HD, have been moved to a less expensive media market.
From Marcus Aurelius's Meditations:
Mortal man, you have lived as a citizen in this great city. What matter if that life is five or fifty ears? The laws of the city apply equally to all. So what is there to fear in your dismissal from the city? This is no tyrant or corrupt judge who dismisses you, but the very same nature that brought you in. It is like the officer who engaged a comic actor dismissing him from the stage. 'But I have not played my five acts, only three.' 'True, but in life three acts can be the whole play.' Completion is determined by that being who caused first your composition and now your dissolution. You have no part in either causation. Go then in peace: the god who lets you go is at peace with you.
46. Keep death daily before your eyes.
https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50040/pg50040-images.html#c...
I would encourage everyone to visit here or one of the similar places mentioned in this thread.
I visited the Sedlec Ossuary a couple of years ago and it was the most visceral personal emotional reaction I have ever had to seeing something. There is something mind-shifting about seeing thousands of human skulls in a pile ala Terminator that I cannot describe with words. I can only relate it to visiting the Vietnam War Memorial and realizing how those overwhelming 60,000ish names are a mere footnote in the casualty record of human conflict.
My wife and I visited this place about 20 years ago.
I remember a woman from Wisconsin laughing and proclaiming, "We Lutherans would never do anything like this!"
There are plenty of chapels and crypts filled with bone/skull walls throughout catholic Europe, the author makes it look like this is quite unique and limited to three locations which is not entirely true.
On a similar vein, if you visit Milan, go see "San Bernardino alle ossa", little known but quite worth a visit!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_alle_Ossa#/medi...
Memento mori (Latin for 'remember that you [have to] die') is an artistic reminder of the inevitability of death. Helps me tremendously!
Yep, great place, been there sooo many times, it used to be free, now there's a small fee to pay at the entrance which also includes a visit to the museum of the Capuchins. You'll find there the San Francesco in Meditazione (San Francis in Prayer) painting from Caravaggio. [1]
The English Wikipedia reports it as a copy, but it is still debated if the original is the one in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini (Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins) or the other one in Palazzo Barberini.
Fun fact: both paintings are in Piazza Barberini, a few hundred meters from each other.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Francis_in_Prayer_(Carav...
Catholics believe in "incorruptibility" as a sign of potential sainthood. This is where the body does not decompose. You can see the bodies on display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorruptibility
Catholics also believe in demonic possession, hell, and exorcism. Not the first things a priest will tell you though :)
"You will become what I am." (https://death-to-the-world.myshopify.com/products/you-will-b...)
Oh man I thought it was 4K as in resolution and I was confused and intrigued.
It's interesting how in less modern times, death was more ever present and yet they still went out of their way to remind people about it.
The modern world by contrast, one can go well into their 30s without personally being touched by it in your family/friends circle. We could use the reminder of it now more than then, and yet we sanitize & Disney-fy everything instead.
Visited it by accident the first day in Rome, just happened to walk by. They have a museum before the crypt where each room had some theme and used different bones. Not particularly religious but it was interesting to see. Seemed like someone spent time in their crypt and had too much time and bones on their hands.
The Paris catacombs, while lacking the Catholic aspect really resonated with me. There is something so incredibly humbling in looking at literally million of skulls and realizing that we are ultimately as insignificant as they were.
Interesting thing about this place is that's it's illegal to decorate with Human Remains in Italy now, so if a bone falls off the wall, they legally can't put it back!
Milan has its own:
> In 1210, when an adjacent cemetery ran out of space, a room was built to hold bones. A church was attached in 1269. Renovated in 1679, it was destroyed by a fire in 1712. A new bigger church was then attached to the older one and dedicated to Saint Bernardino of Siena.
Some pictures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_alle_Ossa
I went to a Catholic school growing up, my parents weren't religious and I largely had no relationship to the faith but one thing that always fascinated me growing up was the old, imposing Gothic church that the students celebrated mass in, which as a kid always was a little bit scary to me.
This church with death on display reminds me of that and to me what's always been striking is that there's almost a pagan or occult undercurrent in Catholicism. I think Midnight Mass, a great show btw, captures this as well. Trying to show how much of an actual blood ritual the Catholic Eucharist is. (in Catholicism bread and wine are taken to be transformed into literally(!), not figuratively the blood and body of Christ).
Also wherever Catholicism mixes with folk traditions this is visible, with figures like Santa Muerte in Latin America. And while the Catholic church usually distances itself from this, it's always interesting how easily these traditions blend.
Similar church in Czech Republic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary
The Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints, part of the former Sedlec Abbey in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic.
The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose bones have, in many cases, been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel.
Another church decorated with skeletons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capela_dos_Ossos
A former primary school colleague (we met 50 years ago next year!) and his daughter wrote a pretty decent book on death anxiety - "Mortals: How the Fear of Death Shaped Human Society" https://good-grief.com.au/mortals-with-ross-and-rachel-menzi...
I have been there as a kid. I might have been too young to process the experience like something related to death, but I recall I didn't feel anything in particular; it left me with absolutely nothing but thinking "why on earth would someone cover a place with skeletons?". It probably contributed much later to my aversion to horror movies.
The article presents so much mystique around the origin of the artful arrangement.
All I could think while reading is this is what happens when the head friar tells the new kid, “the crypt has become a complete mess, can you head down there and make it nice?” And then doesn’t check in on his progress.
There's a modern hotel in the attached original monastery. I attended a scientific conference there a few years ago. Very cool, very weird venue to spend a few days.
I've actually visited this place! It was a very informative visit and had a great museum attached. I found a lot of it beautiful
"It's too late to be scared, the skeleton is already inside you"
A very similar place:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary
The bones belong to about 40 thousand people. Realizing that this enormous boneyard is, by size, equivalent to 0,6 per cent of the Holocaust, is extremely sobering.
I wonder how they mount them to the wall and ceiling?
these photos make me anxious for unknown reasons
And here I am with 1080 skeletons in my house.
They should upscale these to 8K using AI.
So many metal album covers in this.
I would not sleep in that room.