MSFS Day 11: The Ins and Outs of Palermo's Cultural Heritage

Notes from the Field School: August 2nd, 2016

Pineapple juice, cappucino, and
chocolate croissants for Elisa's last day.

We awoke early in the morning to grab breakfast before we walked down to the bus for our journey to Palermo. Many of us went to the Poker Bar to say farewell to our visiting researcher from Brazil, Elisa Pucu. Elisa had to leave the MSFS a bit early to prepare to attend the 9th World Congress on Mummy Studies in Lima, Peru. She will be giving a presentation at the conference and will be talking at a special session dedicated to the memory of her father, Adauto Araujo, who was an important researcher in the area of mummy studies as well as other aspects of paleoparasitology. We already miss Elisa and the parasitological/epidemiological perspectives that she brought to the class to enrich our discussions.

After a long bus ride to Palermo, we reached the Capuchin Church where we would be seeing mummies later in the day. First, we ate the packed lunch provided by Carmelina and Padre Paolo in a relatively cool and shaded area on the steps outside of the church. These individual servings of baked pasta were delicious, containing penne, vegetables, a tomato-based sauce, and melted cheese. With our stomachs full and our bladders empty, we walked to the cemetery where people were buried after mummification and the use of the catacombs was outlawed in the city.

The cemetery was filled with marble slabs, mausoleums, and other memorial structures for the dead. Photographs and flowers were scattered about the graves as we walked through looking at these monuments. Among the graves were rows of cypress trees, which not only provided shade and an aesthetically pleasing landscape, but were also symbolically important representations of eternal life because they are evergreens. Among the many important and loved individuals whose remains are found in this cemetery were two people who were particularly special. The first was Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who wrote one of the most important pieces of Sicilian literature, The Leopard. The other was S.E. Pietro Scaglione, who was murdered near his place of eventual interment as he came to visit his late wife's grave in 1971. He was a judge who had become well-known for working to stop the activities of the mafia. He was a hero for the city of Palermo for this work and he continues to live in the hearts and minds of the people for his efforts to stop the violence and corruption within the community.

Dario tells students about the cemetery behind the church.

Cypress trees have a special religious significance at the cemetery behind the church.

Views of the graves at the cemetery behind the church.

Site of Scaglione's remains within the cemetery.

Next, we embarked on a journey through the city to see the cathedral containing the remains of Palermo's patron saint, St. Rosalia. The church was enormous and was adorned with lavish paintings, carvings of angels and other religious icons, and alcoves containing relics. The most impressive part of the church was of course the silver altar dedicated to St. Rosalia that encases her bones. As you, faithful readers, may recall from a previous blogpost about this saint, Rosalia's ghost appeared to a man during a plague epidemic in 1624. She told the man to go gather her bones from the cave where she lived and died on Mount Pellegrino and to carry them through Palermo in a procession. The man did as she asked and the epidemic came to an end. In honor of this miracle, the city venerated Rosalia and made her their patron saint.

The sanctuary of the cathedral containing the remains of St. Rosalia.

The altar of St. Rosalia, patron saint of Palermo.

We took a quick break for drinks and gelato after leaving the church before we walked back to the Capuchin Church to finally see the catacombs. We were immediately struck by how large the catacombs were and by how many people were interred beneath the church. Out of respect for the mummies, we only took one photo of the class as they first entered the area and did not take any closeup pictures of the individuals themselves. Photos of some of the things that we saw can be found on the Facebook page for the catacombs, which is here.

Students enter the catacombs of the Capuchin Church to look at mummies.

Dario, who is the curator of these mummies, led us through the different corridors talking to us about the history, curation, and culture of the individuals. There was a corridor filled with friars, another with priests, another with professionals (men) of the community, and another for women. There was also an alcove specifically for children, though a few other children were scattered in other areas of the catacombs as well. Students were able to look at differential preservation as they viewed mummy after mummy dressed in various kinds of clothing, displayed in niches, in coffins, or on shelves, and each demonstrating different amounts of soft tissue preservation. Some mummies were almost totally skeletonized, while others maintained enough tissue to make out facial features. Some even had hair on their heads and/or faces, giving them a more life-like appearance than others.

The body of Rosalia Lombardo
(taken with permission of the curator).

At the end of one corridor, in a special nitrogen chamber was a tiny wooden coffin adorned with metal decorations of lions' heads and elevated on metal shaped like the paws of lions. This coffin contained the most life-like mummy within the catacombs, and in fact the most well-preserved mummy in the world. Beneath the layers of glass and bactericidal gas chamber was the body of little Rosalia Lombardo. This beautifully preserved child mummy was prepared by the famous embalmer, Alfredo Salafia after the little girl died at the age of 2 as a result of a type of pneumonia. Many years later, researchers, including our very own Dario Piombino-Mascali, used modern technology to see that her internal organs were intact and were able to determine what techniques Salafia used to create such a perfectly preserved person. Her haunting beauty was beyond description. She seemed to be sleeping or to have only died recently rather than being a person who lived and died long before my parents were born.

Sanctuary of the Capuchin Church
above the catacombs.

After the guided tour, students were asked to each chose one mummy on which to do a visual examination. The students scattered around to pick an individual and began taking notes on pathologies, taphonomic issues, and any demographic data that they could gather visually. In a few days, the students will describe their observations to the class in formal presentations tying in all that they have learned during their short time in Sicily and how the MSFS has affected their professional and personal development. Some students even went so far as the sketch the mummies because photographs were not allowed.

Once we all emerged from the catacombs, notes in hand and new information in mind, we took a look at one final church sanctuary...the Capuchin Church above where we had spent the last few hours examining mummies. The church was as ornate and beautiful as many of the others we've seen over the past week and a half. It featured breathtaking architecture, frescoes, and statues along with relics arranged in a large, elaborately carved wooden display case.

Art and relics in the Capuchin Church.

As we rode back to Santa Lucia, some of us slept while others reflected on all that we had seen during our time in Palermo. When we arrived at the convent, dinner was already waiting for us in the dining room. Boiled eggs, peppers with spices and breadcrumbs, pinwheels with ham, spinach, and cream cheese, and a pasta with a little bit of everything sat patiently on the table as we filed in for a well-earned supper. Afterward, most of us walked down to the square to see the folklore festival already underway. The streets were lit in bright colors of celebration and people were on stage dancing to Sicilian music in traditional dress. We enjoyed the festivities with our coffees and granitas before walking back up to the convent so that we could get some sleep before the events of the coming day.