The Church of the Dead (Chiesa dei Morti) and the Brotherhood of Good Death

Being as it is now that time of the year again, it is an especially fitting time to share yet another ossuary church, this time the Chiesa dei Morti (Church of the Dead) located in Urbania. The church itself was formerly a domestic chapel founded in the year 1380 and associated with the Order of Friars Minor.

It was in the early nineteenth century that this chapel would formally become known as the 'Chiesa dei Morti' at which time it was also the home of a confraternity, the Brotherhood of Good Death, whose specific charism and duties were attached to the assistance of the sick and the poor, as well as to those condemned to death, and to the care and remembrance of the dead.

It is within this specific context then that one can better understand and appreciate the particular nature and character of this church.

The main altar of the church featuring an altarpiece that depicts the Beheading of St. John the Bapitist. On the face of the altar we find the Arma Christi, showing us some of the instruments of Christ's own Passion and death.

A processional funerary standard found within the church

The interior of the church contains numerous memento mori as one might expect, and as is typically the case with these types of churches, we can find the mortal remains of those that have been exhumed displayed within the church. To be properly appreciated (and not maligned), it must be understood that this sort of display was not done for 'macabre' reasons. First and foremost they were done for far more practical one's: namely, space for the deceased was limited and so it was necessary that older tombs be opened up with the remains exhumed in order to make way for the more newly, as yet not decomposed deceased whose remains needed to be buried for obvious sanitary reasons. What then to do with the now exhumed remains of the earlier dead? 

Obviously their remains could not be merely disposed of as if they were refuse, so instead these would be stored in ossuaries such as this, with some of them even being put on display, not as "decor" please bear in mind, but rather as 'memento mori' -- as reminders of our own inevitable mortality and the four last things Christian faith believes in: death, judgement, heaven or hell.  In short, they were meant as spiritual reminders -- or put into modern parlance, they were 'reality checks.' 

The Chiesa dei Morti itself follows this same model and included within is a series of displays featuring the mortal remains of some of those whom they care for in death. 

The mortal remains of Vincenzo Piccini seen wearing confraternity garb.

"Only the grave remains for me" (Job 17:1)

A part of the purpose of the Brotherhood of Good Death was not only the charitable act of providing for a free burial for the dead, but also to provide for a register of the dead so that they would not be forgotten. This even included details of how the deceased met their respective ends.

We moderns can certainly learn something from our predecessors in this regard; not only in their non-avoidance of the reality of death and what comes thereafter, but also for their charitable as well as spiritual care of and for the deceased. Memento mori.

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