Midterm - Macabre Rome: A Cut Above the Rest

My first week in Rome was pleasant enough: puffy white clouds, songbirds in the morning, people smiling in the streets, and dozens of decaying human remains waiting to greet me in churches. In America, you are hard pressed to find a lifeless body on display anywhere outside of a morgue and even then you need a really good reason to see it. I was particularly interested in the heads: the most recognizable and psychological feature now just a mere object. I viewed many sites, but below you’ll only find the spots that were a head and shoulder above the rest.


Saint Valentine, Santa Maria in Cosmedin

I decided to visit this lovely saint’s decapitated cranium on Valentine’s Day, but was surprised to find the 4th century church nearly empty, even though a line wrapped around the building for pictures with its other famous attraction: La Bocca della Verità, or The Mouth of Truth. I guess some people have better things to do on the day of love than visit the dead.

Saint Valentine has got to be the tiniest head I have ever seen, living or departed. It seems at some point a creative monk thought it would be a good idea to shove some red roses on him, almost like Jesus’ crown of thorns. Poor Valentine sadly gazes out at his audience, completely embarrassed by this game of dress up. His missing tooth and jaw added to my pity for him, his golden display case resembling a gilded cage for this once rebelliously romantic saint.


John the Baptist, San Silvestro in Capite

Chopped off by order of King Herod Antipas after a night of drinking, the location of John the Baptist’s true head is claimed by seven places around the world. The church itself is enjoyable enough though, decorated in paintings of decapitations, assassinations, and suffering saints.

I found John in a blindingly white room off to the side and was terrified by what I saw. This particular head is mummified, with a black stone-like cloth tightly covering every inch of his skull and its tilt turning a missing jaw into a permanent scream. The glass case that covers him reflects a nearby red candle’s glow out from his eye sockets (at certain angles) and I was convinced those covered holes could still somehow see me. Where those floor to ceiling bars put there to keep us out, or John the Baptist in?


Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccino

Feng shui meets the macabre in this church’s unique crypt. In 1631, to save space, bodies were exhumed and, for some unknown reason, put up on the walls instead of in containers. There are entire walls filled with skulls carefully stacked upon each other, creating sturdy columns, cute arches, and delightful centerpieces to pelvis star designs. Some even have the skin left on to help you lose your appetite that much easier.

My favorite room was made clear when I was reminded of the true purpose of an idle cranium: the classic skull and crossbones. This piratey design was found in several places throughout the third area of the crypt, adorning the walls above a few lucky (deceased) monks.

For such a dark theme, the monks really did a good job of keeping the place cheerful, with ribcage flowers, hipbone fans, countless vertebrae lining the walls, and a jolly message at the end “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.”


David With The Head Of Goliath, Villa Borghese

The last stop on our dark tour of craniums is the master of light and dark himself: Caravaggio. He seemed to have a clear grasp of what an actual decapitated head looks like for this painting, making it the perfect end for those that get lightheaded when viewing the dead. In a twisted decision by a depressed artist, Caravaggio painted the head in his own likeness as David sadly looks on. This was a point in Caravaggio’s life when he was desperate to go back to Rome, the city he was exiled from for killing a man, a feeling shown in this somber painting.


This is only a small sampling of the captivatingly decapitated heads to be found in Rome. And whether your visit takes you to catacombs or crypts, you can always rest in peace knowing that if the dead become a bit overwhelming, your exit to the world of the living is always near.