The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses by Paul Koudounaris

In one Capuchin monastery in Sicily, the so-called Palermo Catacombs, locals used to buy a niche where their mummified corpse would one day stand erect, clothed and on display to visitors, the way we might now buy a burial plot. Would-be purchasers would pay a visit to select their niche and stand in it to make sure it fitted. Indeed, by way of voluntary penance, some would remain there for hours, contemplating their end.

At the same time, in the early 17th century, a related order of nuns in Rome, the Sepolta Vive or Buried Alive sisters, would sleep in coffins and hail each other with the observation: ‘Remember sister, we all have to die’. As a prelude to a complaint about domestic problems — the dinner or the drains — this would, one feels, put things in perspective.

These are just a couple of vignettes from a fascinating book, The Empire of Death, by Paul Koudounaris, subtitled ‘A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses’.