Discover Capuchin Crypt and Museum

Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini stands on Via Vittorio Veneto, just north of Piazza Barberini, and is the first Roman church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. Pope Urban VIII blessed its first stone on 4 October 1626, and his Capuchin brother, Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini, built it. The first mass was said on 8 September 1630 and construction finished in 1631.

What draws visitors is underneath. In 1631 Cardinal Barberini ordered the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars exhumed and moved from the friary on Via dei Lucchesi into the crypt below the church. It is a corridor some thirty metres long, flanked today by six rooms — Wikipedia counts five chapels, the friars themselves say six — holding the remains of about 3,700 dead, most of them Capuchin friars. It is lit only by dim natural light seeping through cracks and by small lamps, and the walls are decorated with those remains in elaborate fashion: some skeletons intact and draped in Franciscan habits, but for the most part individual bones used to make ornamental designs. Tradition holds that the earth of this cemetery is holy ground, carried here from Palestine or from Jerusalem itself.

It was not made to shock. The crypt belongs to a period of rich and creative devotion around the dead, when spiritual masters meditated and preached with a skull in hand. A plaque in one chapel puts it plainly, in three languages: "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be."

Its fame once rivalled that of the Catacombs, and the Sedlec ossuary in the Czech Republic and the Skull Chapel in Poland are both said to have been inspired by it. Above ground, the church and the friars' museum hold paintings by Guido Reni, Domenichino, Andrea Sacchi and — attributed — Caravaggio.

Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini stands on Via Vittorio Veneto, just north of Piazza Barberini, and is the first Roman church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. Pope Urban VIII blessed its first stone on 4 October 1626, and his Capuchin brother, Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini, built it. The first mass was said on 8 September 1630 and construction finished in 1631.

What draws visitors is underneath. In 1631 Cardinal Barberini ordered the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars exhumed and moved from the friary on Via dei Lucchesi into the crypt below the church. It is a corridor some thirty metres long, flanked today by six rooms — Wikipedia counts five chapels, the friars themselves say six — holding the remains of about 3,700 dead, most of them Capuchin friars. It is lit only by dim natural light seeping through cracks and by small lamps, and the walls are decorated with those remains in elaborate fashion: some skeletons intact and draped in Franciscan habits, but for the most part individual bones used to make ornamental designs. Tradition holds that the earth of this cemetery is holy ground, carried here from Palestine or from Jerusalem itself.

It was not made to shock. The crypt belongs to a period of rich and creative devotion around the dead, when spiritual masters meditated and preached with a skull in hand. A plaque in one chapel puts it plainly, in three languages: "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be."

Its fame once rivalled that of the Catacombs, and the Sedlec ossuary in the Czech Republic and the Skull Chapel in Poland are both said to have been inspired by it. Above ground, the church and the friars' museum hold paintings by Guido Reni, Domenichino, Andrea Sacchi and — attributed — Caravaggio.

Above ground it is a modest Baroque church, and deliberately so. A brick facade with white stone pilasters rises above a scissor staircase; inside is a single nave with five chapels on each side and Liborio Coccetti's Assumption on the barrel vault. The Capuchins are a reformed Franciscan order committed to poverty, and the building says so — this is not a Barberini display piece despite being a Barberini commission.

The one grand gesture is the altar. Urban VIII ordered the main altar built in marble, and his coat of arms sits at the base of its two columns. The altarpiece, The Conception, is by Gioacchino Bombelli, copied from an original by Lanfranco that was destroyed by fire.

The crypt is the real architecture, and it is made of people. Five chapels below the church, lit only by dim natural light seeping through cracks and by small lamps. The walls are decorated with the remains of thousands of friars: some skeletons intact and draped in Franciscan habits, but for the most part individual bones arranged into elaborate ornamental designs — a macabre work of art, assembled from a community by that community.

It was devotional rather than theatrical. The crypt originated in a period of rich and creative devotion around the dead, when great spiritual masters meditated and preached with a skull in hand. The trilingual plaque states the argument: what you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.

It was built fast, by a pope's brother, for a poor order. Pope Urban VIII blessed the first stone on 4 October 1626, and his brother Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini — a Capuchin — took the construction on, working to designs by the architects Felice Antonio Casoni and Michele da Bergamo. The first mass was celebrated on 8 September 1630 and the building was completed in 1631: five years from stone to finish, for a church of a single nave and ten side chapels.

The crypt was furnished the year the church was finished, and furnished with the community itself. In 1631 Cardinal Barberini ordered the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars exhumed from the friary on Via dei Lucchesi and transferred into the space beneath the new church. The bones were not stored; they were used — worked into ornamental designs across the walls and vaults of five chapels, with some skeletons left intact in their habits.

The lighting was never improved, and that is a decision. The chapels are lit only by dim natural light seeping in through cracks, supplemented by small lamps. Anywhere else that would read as neglect; here it is the condition the arrangement was designed for.

The church above filled up over the following decades. Reni's St Michael was commissioned in 1630 and finished in 1636; Taddeo Barberini commissioned Balassi's Transfiguration; Lanfranco, Domenichino, Baccio Ciarpi, Gerard van Honthorst and Andrea Sacchi filled the other chapels. The marble high altar was Urban VIII's order, and his arms are at the foot of its columns.

The last change is the museum. The friars have added exhibition rooms alongside the crypt holding the order's own paintings and objects — including a San Francesco in meditazione attributed to Caravaggio — so the modern route runs museum first, crypt last, which is the opposite of the order most visitors expect.

What is the Capuchin Crypt? Five chapels beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, decorated with the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars, moved here in 1631 from the friary on Via dei Lucchesi.

What are the opening hours? Every day, 9.30–13.30 and 14.30–18.30, with last entries at 12.30 and 17.30. It closes for an hour between the two.

What does it cost? €10.00 full, €6.50 reduced, €7.50 per person for groups of at least ten. The audioguide is included. Buying online adds €1.50 per ticket.

Is it cheaper to book online? No — it is more expensive here, by €1.50 a ticket. That is the opposite of MAXXI in the same city.

Is it free for tourist guides? National tourist guides with a professional badge enter free; international tourist guides with a badge get the reduced rate. The operator distinguishes between the two.

Is it suitable for children? Children up to and including 6 enter free, but the crypt is an ossuary presented as one, and parents should decide accordingly.

What is the plaque? In one chapel, in three languages: “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.” A memento mori, and the reason the crypt exists.

Is there a Caravaggio? The museum holds a San Francesco in meditazione attributed to Caravaggio — Francis at prayer with a skull in his hands.

What is the story about the devil's face? Guido Reni's St Michael, in the first chapel on the right, was commissioned in 1630 and finished in 1636. By legend Reni gave Satan the features of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj — later Pope Innocent X — in revenge for a slight.

Did it inspire other ossuaries? The Sedlec ossuary in the Czech Republic and the Skull Chapel in Poland are both said to have been inspired by it.