Capuchin Crypt - Cross Stitch Pattern by Dirty Annie's

stitch count: 103x150

Model was stitched on 32ct Sea Lavender linen from Barefoot Needle Art

The Capuchin Crypt is located beneath the church of Santa Maria Della Concezione dei Cappuccini on the Via Veneto  in Rome, Italy. It contains the skeletal remains of 3,700 bodies believed to be Capuchin friars buried by their order. The Catholic order insists that the display is not meant to be macabre, but a silent reminder of the swift passage of life on Earth and our own mortality. 

When the friars arrived at the church in 1631, moving from the old monastery, they brought 300 cartloads of the remains of deceased friars. The soil in the crypt was brought from Jerusalem, by order of Pope Urban VIII. 

The bones were arranged along the walls, and the friars began to bury their own dead there, 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 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.

There are six rooms in the crypt: Crypt of the Resurrection, the Mass Chapel, Crypt of the Skulls, Crypt of the Pelvises, Crypt of the Leg and Thigh Bones, and Crypt of the Three Skeletons.

This chart depicts the Crypt of the Three Skeletons where a placard in five languages declares “What you are now we used to be; What we are now you will be.”