Capuchin Catacombs Palermo

Beneath Palermo’s Capuchin convent, long galleries cut through tuff hold one of Europe’s largest collections of preserved human remains. The catacombs began as a burial place for the friars. In 1599, after the first bodies were found unusually well preserved, the community placed them in the underground corridors. In 1783, the Capuchins opened burial there to laypeople as well, and families began requesting that relatives be preserved and displayed in the clothing of their time.

The collection grew into a record of Palermo society from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. The corridors were organized by category—men, women, professionals, children, and religious figures—so the arrangement reflects social distinctions as much as burial practice. Around two thousand skeletons and mummified bodies are held within the galleries, though not every body is equally preserved. Visitors see the clothing, posture, and individual features of people who died across several generations.