L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS ANTHONY DI RENZO A t the foot of Via Veneto, a memento mori for the pam- pered and the privi- leged ordering a round of Bellini cocktails at Harry's Bar or booking the Villa La Cupola Suite at the Westin Excelsior, stands Santa Maria della Concezione, nicknamed the Bone Church by irreverent young Romans. Its ghastly crypt testifies to the vanity of human wishes. The church was founded in 1 6 2 6 b y A n t o n i o M a r c e l l o Barberini, the humblest member of the proud Florentine family busily remaking Rome in its own image. Twenty years earli- er, he had rejected rank and wealth to join the Capuchins, the m o s t a u s t e r e b r a n c h o f t h e Franciscans; but when his broth- e r M a f f e o w a s e l e c t e d P o p e Urban VIII, Fra Antonio was made a cardinal and appointed G r a n d I n q u i s i t o r o f R o m e , Director of the Vatican Library, and Major Penitentiary. Cardinal Barberini's first pro- ject was to build a headquarters for his order. Its old convent, San Bonaventura on Via dei L u c c h e s i , h a d b e c o m e t o o c r a m p e d , s o H i s E m i n e n c e picked a spacious suburban lot o c c u p i e d b y v i n e y a r d s a n d owned by his brother the pope. A f t e r c o n s t r u c t i o n , t h e Capuchins moved into the friary, along with the skeletons of three hundred dead monks. Pope Urban donated cart- loads of earth from the Holy L a n d , s o t h a t t h e d e c e a s e d b r e t h r e n m i g h t b e p r o p e r l y buried in the convent's crypt. A g r e a t h o n o r . S i n c e t h e R e s u r r e c t i o n w i l l b e g i n i n J e r u s a l e m , t h e d e a d m o n k s w o u l d b e a m o n g t h e f i r s t t o receive their reward at the Last Trump. Unfortunately, they will spend the rest of eternity sorting and assembling their jumbled bones. To prevent overcrowding, the Capuchins laid their dead in Holy Land soil for only thirty years, enough time for the bod- ies to completely decompose. As the bell tolled the passing cen- turies, the longest-buried monks were exhumed to make room for the newly deceased, who were buried without coffins, and the newly reclaimed bones were added to the ossuary. This prac- tice ended in 1870; but by then, t h e c o n v e n t ' s u n d e r g r o u n d chapel had become a tourist trap. Six small rooms teem with t h e b o n e s o f f o u r t h o u s a n d monks arranged into decorative patterns: arches of femurs, pyra- mids of skulls, frescoes of verte- brae. Ribs and clavicles, joints and teeth form crosses, hearts, and crowns. Beneath a flickering c h a n d e l i e r o f w i r e d h u m e r i , skeletons attired in hooded robes grin in their niches. "Picturesque horrors," Mark Twain called them, during a visit to Rome. Twain wondered w h y t h e l i v i n g m o n k s w e r e cheered by the prospect of being taken apart like a clock and turned into a diorama in the Barnum Museum, until a guide told him about the Capuchins' own showman. Fra Pacifico once drew huge crowds to the crypt. The faithful came not to attend mass but to pick up numbers for the lottery. Outraged, Pope Gregory XVI b a n i s h e d h i m f r o m R o m e . Ushered to the Porta del Popolo by a mob of pickpockets, beg- g a r s , a n d w h o r e s , t h e f r i a r preached a final sermon on the wages of sin and left one last tip on the next drawing. The crypt still attracts the c y n i c a l a n d t h e g l i b . R a n d y bucks come to make their dates squeal. Horror fans prefer it to s t r e a m i n g D a r i o A r g e n t o o n Netflix. As the sound system p i p e s a P a l e s t r i n a K y r i e , a Beyoncé wannabe takes a selfie by a plaque: "WHAT YOU ARE NOW, WE USED TO BE. WHAT WE ARE NOW, YOU WILL BE…" The padre guardiano, the friar c u s t o d i a n , s h a k e s h i s h e a d . Thank God, the church's founder never witnessed such indecen- cies. Cardinal Antonio Barberini died in 1646, two years after his brother Pope Urban VIII. He had hoped to resign his offices and r e s u m e t h e l i f e o f a s i m p l e monk, but relatives pressured him to participate in the conclave that elected his brother's succes- sor, Giovanni Battista Pamphili, who took the name Innocent X. Innocent held a grudge. A s i d e c h a p e l i n t h e C a p u c h i n church displayed a painting by Guido Remi of St. Michael van- quishing Satan. Crushed under Michael's foot, the Devil scan- d a l o u s l y r e s e m b l e d t h e n e w p o p e . I n n o c e n t a l s o n e e d e d scapegoats for the disastrous Wars of Castro. After an investi- gation, he exiled the cardinal's three nephews: Francesco and A n t o n i o , a l s o c a r d i n a l s , a n d T a d d e o , G o n f a l o n i e r o f t h e Church and Commander of the Papal Army. G r i e f a n d s h a m e k i l l e d Barberini, who felt unworthy to be placed in the ossuary of Santa Maria della Concezione. Instead, he is buried near the altar, not in a grand marble sarcophagus, like most cardinals, but beneath a simple flagstone with this bleak Latin epitaph: "HIC IACET PVLVIS CINIS ET NIHIL." Here lies dust, ashes, and nothing. There is no name or date. P a s q u i n o ' s s e c r e t a r y i s Anthony Di Renzo, professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@itha- ca.edu. Vanità delle Vanità Pasquino picks a bone with mortality The Santa Maria della Concezione Church, at the end of Via Veneto (Copyright: Dreamstime) A portrait of Antonio Marcello Barbe- rini

• Cover