The Chapels of Bones
Portugal's Capela dos Ossos is lined with more than 5,000 skulls and assorted human bones.
This memento mori chapel is a small portion of the larger, bone-free complex named the Igreja de Sao Francisco (Royal Church of St. Francis). It lies approximately 87 miles from Lisbon.
Evora is the capital of the Alentejo, and the architecture of the city is a blend of Moorish and Roman influence. Its history dates back to 57 B.C. when it was called Ebora Cerealis by the Roman commander Quintus Sertorius, who used it as his headquarters. It was also the regional capital of the Celtic tribes in the Iberian Peninsula.
Evora's Chapel of Bones is based on a design of the ossuary of San Bernardino alle Ossa in Milan, Italy, and was built between 1480 and 1510 with three naves. The chapel lies on the site where initially the monks’ dorm and reflecting room were.
These were the years of Portugal's maritime expansion, and ceremonies of great importance were held there.
During the 16th century there were over 40 monastic cemeteries in Evora, and they had run out of room. The Franciscan monks had run out of space as well in their two cemeteries, and the city cemeteries were full to the brim as well. Space was needed for the newly dead.
Three monks were tasked in planning and building the ossuary. They took the bones from graves in the convent church and from other churches and cemeteries in Evora, then cemented them into the walls, carving over the entrance "Nós ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamo," which translates to: "We bones who are here, we wait for yours." They also decorated the walls, columns, arches and domes. Bone fragments were used for the mortar.
The Chapel of Bones measures 61 feet long by 36 feet wide, and has eight pillars. The vaulted ceiling is decorated with frescoes from 1810.
Unsurprisingly many of the messages in the chapel remind man of his mortality. Inside hangs a poem written by Father Antonio da Ascenção Teles written in the 1840s that reads:
“Where are you going in such a hurry, traveler? Pause … do not advance your travel; You have no greater concern Than this one: that on which you focus your sight.
Recall how many have passed from this world, Reflect on your similar end, There is good reason to reflect If only all did the same.
Ponder, you so influenced by fate, Among all the many concerns of the world, So little do you reflect on death;
If by chance you glance at this place, Stop … for the sake of your journey, The more you pause, the further on your journey you will be.”
A legend tied into the Capela dos Ossos is that the bones used were not from the Franciscan monks, but from the dead that came after an arsenal within a castle keep was struck by lightning in the town of Monte Maior. Over three-quarters of the homes in the town were destroyed. The body count was in the thousands and all were laid to rest in a mass grave. Thirty years passed, and their bones were exhumed and used as a tribute to the deceased.
Now housed in glass cases, two skeletonized mummies once hung from chains in the ceiling. One was an adult, the other a child who have always be unnamed. Another legend pertaining to these remains is that they belonged to a father and son. The son mistreated his mother, and his father either allowed it or was an accomplice. When she was dying she cursed them both saying: “May the earth of your graves not be destroyed!”
In another version, the man was an adulterer and the child his bastard. Next to nothing is known about them except that they have been hanging in the chapel since the 17th century.
In 2019, the story of the mummies changed radically. An investigation found that they were a woman and a girl. The woman died from a tooth infection; she was between 30 and 50. The child was 2 or 3 years old.
As gruesome as it sounds, there were other places that lined their walls with bones. The 17th century Capuchin Crypt in Rome used the skeletons of 3,700 friars. There is a room called the Crypt of the Pelvises, which considering the what is housed there, seems most apt.
The Sedlec Ossuary in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic constructed in 1400, was built on land with soil from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. This made the churchyard especially attractive as a place to be buried. Like the church in Portugal the priests decided to move the bones inside. In 1870, they hired Frantisek Rint, a woodcarver who was tasked to organize the bones. He created a bone chandelier and crests using tibias, fibulas and femurs. Sedlec Ossuary is made from the bones of approximately 40,000 persons.
