Monastery of San Francisco
Lima’s Monastery of San Francisco, a UNESCO World Heritage site, contains the bones of Lima dwellers. The catacombs, which are underneath the church, are connected by secret passageways which lead from the chapel to the Tribunal of the Inquisition. Skulls and femur bones can be found arranged in large circular geometric patterns deep within the ground.
San Bernardino alle Ossa
The small and unassuming San Bernardino alle Ossa in Milan appears to be a modest church from the outside. But a set of heavy double doors leads to the side chapel’s decorative ossuary, which contains walls of stacked bones, arranged in crucifix shapes. In 1679 Giovanni Andrea Biffi was asked to restore the chapel after a fire from almost 400 years before, and arranged the bones decoratively.
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