I am going to write this one plainly, because it deserves that more than it deserves atmosphere.
Under a Capuchin monastery on the western edge of Palermo there are around eight thousand bodies. They are not in coffins and they are not underground in the sense of being buried. They are standing in wall niches and lying in open cases along a set of corridors, most of them still dressed, arranged by category: men, women, priests, professionals, virgins, children.
It is one of the most visited places in the city. It is also the one thing here that a reasonable person might decide not to do. The wider planning is in my complete guide to Palermo.
What it is, and what it is not
It began by accident in the late sixteenth century. The monastery ran out of room in its burial ground, cut a crypt out of the rock beneath, and moved the existing bodies into it. The particular dryness of that rock preserved them far better than anyone expected.
The monks took this as significant. What started as a practical problem became a practice, then a privilege, then a status symbol. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries prominent citizens were leaving instructions and money to be preserved here, sometimes specifying the clothes they wanted to be seen in and arranging for them to be changed periodically by relatives.
That last detail is the one that reframes the place. These are not anonymous remains put on show. Most of these people asked for this. The clothes are the point: they are how a person wanted to be remembered, chosen while alive.
It is not a horror attraction, and it is not presented as one. It is a Capuchin burial place, still in the care of the order, with a modest entrance fee and very plain signage.
The last burials were in the 1920s. The best known is a two year old girl, Rosalia Lombardo, embalmed in 1920 by a method the chemist did not fully record, and preserved so well that she is difficult to look at for reasons that have nothing to do with decay.
Going, and how to feel about it
The practical shape of a visit: it is on Piazza Cappuccini, out to the west of the centre, about a half hour walk from the cathedral or a short bus or taxi ride. The entrance fee is small, a few euros, cash is safest, and the visit takes half an hour to forty-five minutes.
Photography has been restricted at various points and the rule has changed more than once. Assume you should not photograph and ask if it matters to you.
There is no audio guide worth the name and very little interpretation. You walk the corridors and read the occasional plaque.
Who should skip it. Anyone squeamish, obviously. Anyone recently bereaved. Children, in my view, though I have seen plenty in there and the Capuchins do not stop anyone. If you are unsure whether you want to see a preserved child in a glass case, the answer is that you do not.
Who will find it worthwhile. People interested in how a culture handles its dead, which is a real subject and one Sicily has thought about longer than most places. It is closer to a museum of attitudes than a display of bodies.
How I would think about it
The thing that stayed with me was not the bodies. It was the hooks.
Many of the standing figures are held up by iron brackets at the neck and waist, and the clothes have gone, in a hundred and fifty years, from their best suit to something that hangs. The gap between how carefully these people planned this and how it actually looks now is the whole thing.
They wanted to be seen. They are being seen. It has just not gone the way anybody imagined.
Whether that is moving or grim is genuinely a matter of temperament, and I do not think either reaction is the wrong one. What I would say is that going in expecting a fright is the one approach that gets nothing out of it.
How the corridors are arranged
It helps to know the layout before you go in, because the organisation is the argument.
The corridors are divided by category rather than by date. There is a corridor of men, largely professionals and the middle class, in their good suits. A corridor of women, many in dresses that were fashionable when they died and are now unmistakably of a decade. A section for priests in vestments, and one for monks, who are the oldest and plainest of all, in their habits and rope belts.
There is a chapel of virgins, young unmarried women, and a small area for children.
The effect of arranging people by their social role rather than their family is strange and specific. You do not see the Rossi family together. You see everybody who was a lawyer, standing in a line, for two hundred years.
That is a very particular idea about what a person mainly is, and it is the thing I found most worth thinking about afterwards.
The alternative, if you decide against
Nobody needs to do this to have seen Palermo.
If you want the city’s relationship with death and display without the corridors, the Palazzo Abatellis holds a fifteenth century fresco of the Triumph of Death, a skeletal rider on a skeletal horse cutting through a garden of the comfortable. It is a masterpiece and it makes an argument close to the same one, in paint.
Practical summary
Where: Piazza Cappuccini, west of the centre. Half an hour on foot from the cathedral.
Cost: a few euros. Bring cash.
Time: thirty to forty-five minutes.
Hours: generally daily with a break in the middle of the day, and reduced hours out of season. Check before crossing the city.
Dress: it is a religious site attached to a working monastery. Cover your shoulders.
Read also: the best things to do in Palermo, a Palermo itinerary, and my complete guide to Palermo.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo?
A burial place beneath a Capuchin monastery holding around eight thousand preserved bodies, most still clothed and arranged along corridors by category. It began in the late sixteenth century when the monks ran out of burial ground, and the dry rock preserved the remains far better than intended.
Why are the bodies in the Palermo catacombs clothed?
Because most of the people here chose it. From the eighteenth century onward, prominent citizens left money and instructions to be preserved, often specifying the clothes they wished to be seen in, with relatives sometimes changing them over the years. The clothing is the point rather than an accident.
How much do the Capuchin Catacombs cost and how long does a visit take?
The entrance fee is a few euros and cash is the safest option. Most visits take thirty to forty-five minutes. There is little interpretation on site, so some background reading before you go improves it considerably.
Should you take children to the Capuchin Catacombs?
I would not. The order does not prevent it and you will see families inside, but the collection includes preserved children, and there is nothing gained by testing whether a particular child is ready for that.
Is there an alternative to the catacombs in Palermo?
Yes. The Triumph of Death fresco at Palazzo Abatellis is a fifteenth century masterpiece on much the same theme, a skeletal rider cutting through a garden of the comfortable. It makes a similar argument about mortality and display, in paint rather than in person.
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