Waking up quite early, a necessity in order to make it back
in time for the morning activity, Claire, Emily and myself began out adventure
departing on the train from Lepanto. Upon arriving we were guided on a short
walk to the entrance of the Church and old Cappuccini monastery. It was
situated on a side street, with tall shady trees looming over it, disguising
much of the church from view. These trees prevented the full majesty of the
church to be appreciated but the staircase up showed it to still be quite the
monumental structure. I began to immediately and eagerly climb the stairs to
the highest entrance before Claire quickly called me back pointing to a rather
inconspicuous side door. Upon entering I was surprised by the highly modern
room that presented itself more as a hotel lobby then as a museum entrance. We quickly
payed and proceeded inside and were greeted by the museum before the crypt
itself. The beginning of the museum was the most interesting with the origins
of the monastery on display with early artifacts. These artifacts ranged from
the monk’s daily goods such as their shoes, books and dining goods to their beautiful
works of art and above all their reliquaries.
These
were seen as either crosses or books, each with tiny glass fronts which
contained splinters and fragments of various relics. Pieces of the cross, toenails
of saints, bits of hair, in other words, almost anything that had come in
contact with those who are seen as most holy by the church. The museum continued
onward in the history of the monastery and their history within the more modern
age. This became substantially less interesting to me without any real
reasoning but more so due to the lack of material goods and the growing number
of photographs, letters, and descriptions of the successes of the modern
catholic church.
We began
to speed through the last part of the museum equally due to our growing disinterest
in the content and excitement about the approaching crypt. As we entered the crypt,
I was initially a little disappointed at the size, I could see the end of it
from the entrance and took that as a bad sign. However, my initial reaction was
quickly put to bed as I turned and examined the first exhibit. It is at first
almost hard to notice the bone, with the exception of the skulls, as they are
so expertly intertwined and joined into pieces of art and wall. As I gazed
around the room becoming more and more amazed, I looked up for the first time
and received a heart attack noticing the bone chandelier mere inches from my
head. After this room we were then greeted by the first of the mummified monks.
For me their size was the most apparent thing, greatly reduced in stature by the
decay of death these men were perhaps five feet tall. After that I was
enthralled by their state of preservation. They had noses, nails and teeth and
all seemed to be smiling at me as I passed. Through this entire process I was
in awe at the pure amount of death around me. In one room I made the mistake of
counting the skulls and received a number of roughly 500 on one wall. 500
people on one wall of one of the six rooms. This terrified me thinking about
the thousands of people I must be walking past through this museum.
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