An unusual tourist attraction

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Saturday 9^th June, 2012 - Urbania

After Gail finished two hours of school this morning, we visited The Church of the Dead, - a most unusual tourist “attraction” in Urbania.

Back in the 1500s, when Urbania was still called Caste Durante, people who couldn't afford a proper burial were buried under one of the churches.

In about 1804, some of these bodies were discovered in a perfectly mummified condition. This was due to a certain mushroom that dehydrated the bodies, slowing decomposition.

About 15 of these bodies are on display at the church. It was a weird feeling being in a room with these mummified corpses, which are all in a room behind the altar of the church.

Our guide explained in Italian/English, how the bodies were discovered, how the mummification process with the mushrooms works, and how each of the people died. Amongst the mummies:


• a woman from a C-section gone wrong
• a woman who had died of polio
• a thief who had been hanged
• a young man who had been stabbed in a fight - and we were shown his dehydrated heart which was removed in an autopsy performed about 30 years ago.<span>We saw where he was stabbed
• a young woman who suffered from Down syndrome
• a priest who had died from high cholesterol
• a man who had been buried alive.<span> He had gone into a coma; he felt cold, his heartbeat could not be heard, and he didn't respond. <span> Thinking he was dead, he was buried.<span> However, it appears that he woke up and suffocated. You can see from his expanded and uplifted ribcage that he was trying to get air.<span> His capillaries all over his body burst, and one could still see the red colouration of the blood in his body.


The following is taken from the web site…. http://www.agriturismiurbino.com/2009/08/05/the-church-of-the-dead/

The Church of the Dead, known as the Capella Cola until 1836, is adorned with a beautiful gothic doorway. Inside lies the Cemetery of the Mummies famous for its strange phenomenon of natural mummification, caused by the particular mould present within which has absorbed moisture from the corpses leading to the complete desiccation of the bodies. In 1833, following the foundation of out of town cemeteries by order of the 1804 Napoleonic edict of Saint Cloud, 18 mummified corpses from nearby tombs were displayed behind the church altar. The Brotherhood of Good Death, founded in Casteldurante in 1567, organised the layout of the corpses under the patronage of Saint Giovanni Decollato. (Inside the church there is a representation of this saint, an artwork by Giustino Episcopi). The saints tasks were to arrange free transport and burial of the dead (especially the poor), to assist the dying, to register the dead in a special book as well as to collect and distribute money for the poor. During a death ceremony, the brothers wore a white sack with a cap (visible at the centre of the church in the figure of Prior Vincenzo Piccini, inventor of the necropolis).

After this unusual visit, we had a leisurely lunch at a café here in town, then a relaxing afternoon – Gail doing some more study, Steve uploading photos from cameras to the PC.

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