In 1775 Marquis de Sade visited the Cemetery in Immaculate Conception of Virgin Mary in Rome and he describes it as: “A German priest of this house created a monument of funerary art, worthy of an Englishman mind, niches, vaults, ceiling, ornaments of pleasant, regular design, lamps, crosses, and all made out of bones and skulls, in six or seven adjoining rooms. In every niche and under every arch there are well-preserved skeletons placed in various poses, some recumbent, some preaching and some in prayer. All these skeletons are dressed in the Capuchin habit and some have beards. I have never seen anything more impressive. This monument should not be seen by day but in the glow of the funeral lamps. Windows are left open so as to purify the air of this cavern and to let the light of the sun diminish the horror. The various graves of these good friars are distributed in each of these small chambers like stones in a garden, and the sight of death surrounding them on all sides does not prevent them from being as cheerful as in the rest of Europe”.
It can be assumed that this art work took place from 1732-1775. The remains of 3.700 people, mostly Capuchins, are gathered together in this place in a corridor about thirty meters long with six chambers. According to tradition, the soil in this cemetery was brought from the Holy Land, Palestine or even Jerusalem. A hypothesis has been put forward, that the brilliant artist must have been Father Raffaele from Rome, a talented Capuchin painter who died in Rome in 1805. According to others, the author could be identified as Father Norbert Baumgartner from Vienna (1710-1773) which works are still in the Church. Another name was that of Ennemond Alexandre Petitot who was in Rome from 1746-1750.
The side walls have four niches on each side with Capuchins standing and dressed in their habit. In the back wall, the ventral block is a rich and whimsical composition; on the wall, above a cross enclosed in a circle, under the Franciscan crest, the bare arm of Christ and the dressed arm of St. Francis of Assisi, surmounted by a crown. On the floor there are 18 circle adorned with vertebrae and two large side flowers formed by shoulder blades with pendants of vertebrae. The vault of the corridor has three stars with eight points, a sign that above is the church dedicated to our Lady, the morning star.
Photo: Füsun Kavrakoğlu, Rome, 2026.
Source
Information panels in the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in Rome.
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