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| Capuchin Crypt (Photo by stanthejeep) |
While surrounded by the thigh-bone arches and grinning-skull pyramids that the Capuchin Crypt is famous for, Twain could not help but ask a few pressing questions of the monk who served as his tour guide. The first
- “Who were these people?” – was answered simply and to the point: “We –
upstairs – Monks of the Capuchin order – my brethren.” At the time
of Twain’s visit “the bones of four thousand” were there – and had been painstakingly categorized into separate rooms of skulls, legs, ribs, etc. This prompted Twain to comment sardonically: “… there would be stirring times here for a while if the last trump should blow. Some of
the brethren might get hold of the wrong leg, in the confusion, and the wrong
skull, and find themselves limping, and looking through eyes that were wider apart or closer together than they were used to…”
Today’s Capuchin friars (so-named because of the hood “capuche” that is attached to the habit each wears) say that the message of their Crypt is clear: “death
closes the gates of time, and opens those of eternity.”
In the Crypt of the Three Skeletons (one of the six rooms within the overall Capuchin Crypt), this placard (in
five different languages) reminds people that they too shall pass:
What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be…”
The Capuchin Order began in 1520 because of a Franciscan friar’s longing to more closely follow the example of St. Francis of Assisi. It was St. Francis who said:
All praise be yours, my Lord, for Sister
Death, from whose embrace no mortal can escape… Happy those She finds doing your most holy will…
Resources
http://www.cappucciniviaveneto.it/cappuccini_ing.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capuchin_Crypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Friars_Minor_Capuchin
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/3176-h.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innocents_Abroad
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