Just off Piazza Barberini, this plain brick church hides one of Rome's strangest sights below its floor.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 400 BC–1973
The short answer
Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, on Via Vittorio Veneto in Rome, is a Capuchin church built between 1626 and 1631 whose crypt holds the arranged bones of roughly 4,000 exhumed friars, decorated into walls, arches and ceiling patterns across five small chapels beneath the nave.
Còpia digital del negatiu original de vidre Llegat Dolors Moros, 2010 Museu d'Art Jaume Morera, Lleida. 2537 — 1899 · Baldomer Gili i Roig · Public domain
1626 to 1631
A pope's brother built this church and filled its crypt with bones
Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini is a Capuchin church, still active for worship, now best known for the bone-decorated crypt beneath it. It sits on Via Vittorio Veneto, just north of Piazza Barberini.
Pope Urban VIII blessed its first stone on October 4, 1626. His brother, the Capuchin Antonio Marcello Barberini, oversaw its construction. The architects were Felice Antonio Casoni and Michele da Bergamo. The first Mass was said on September 8, 1630, with Urban VIII himself presiding. Builders finished the church the following year. It holds a single small nave with ten side chapels, five on each side.
In 1631, Cardinal Antonio ordered something unusual. He had the bones of thousands of dead Capuchin friars dug up from the order's old burial ground near Via dei Lucchesi and carried to the new crypt beneath this church. Over the centuries that followed, roughly 4,000 friars were buried and later exhumed here, their bones built into walls, arches, and ceiling patterns in five small chapels. Some still wear their brown friar's habits. A skeleton holds a scythe and a set of scales, both made from bone. A plaque in three languages warns visitors: "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be."
Antonio Barberini himself was later buried in the church he helped build. Guido Reni painted the first chapel's dramatic Archangel Michael around 1635, commissioned by the Barberini family. A long-standing story claims Reni gave Satan's crushed face the features of a rival cardinal, Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, out of spite.
1636 to 1728
A Polish prince and his sculptor both lie buried here
Prince Alexander Sobieski, son of Poland's King John III, who had defeated the Ottomans at Vienna, became a Capuchin friar and died in Rome in 1714. Alexander Sobieski was buried in this church. Sculptor Camillo Rusconi carved his tomb, a marble monument beside the main altar. Rusconi himself died in 1728 and was buried here too.
The Archangel Michael painting carries more than one legend. Another version ties the painting to the Thirty Years' War, saying Reni gave Satan the features of Pope Innocent X, who as Cardinal Pamphilj later wore the tiara and found Satan's crushed face looking back at him from a church wall.
1869
Mark Twain heard a monk's blunt verdict on the bones
Mark Twain visited the crypt and wrote about it in Innocents Abroad. Twain asked a monk what would happen when the monk himself died. The monk answered plainly: "We must all lie here at last."
Visitors still walk through five small chapels built from bone. One room uses only skulls. Another uses leg bones and thigh bones, arranged in patterns along the walls and ceiling. The skeleton holding a scythe and scales watches over a chapel meant to remind visitors of death's fairness. Some say the crypt's fame helped inspire the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic, built later from the bones of plague and war dead.
1900 to 1920s
A bell tower and a convent fell for Rome's growth
Workers tore down the church's bell tower at the end of the 1800s to build Via Vittorio Veneto, the broad street that still runs past its door. In the 1920s, the Capuchins lost their convent too, demolished for a new government ministry building nearby. The friars rebuilt their convent beside the church in 1925, where it still stands.
1973
A car bomb struck the piazza outside this church
On June 17, 1973, a car bomb exploded in Piazza Barberini, a short walk from the church. Italy was living through the Years of Lead, a period when neo-fascist and far-left groups both used bombings to try to destabilize the government. The square the church looks out on had already seen death long before. Until the 1700s, city officials displayed unidentified bodies found around Rome in this same piazza, hoping someone would come forward to name them.
2012 to now
A museum opened beside a crypt still drawing visitors
The Capuchins opened a museum next to the crypt in 2012, telling the story of their order and this church. The sacristy holds a painting some call Saint Francis in Meditation, which some scholars attribute to Caravaggio, though the attribution remains disputed. Court papers from Caravaggio's own lifetime mention him borrowing a monk's robe, which some connect to this very painting.
The church still holds Mass. About 100 feet away, Bernini's bee fountain marks the corner where Via Vittorio Veneto meets Piazza Barberini, a quieter reminder from the same Barberini family that built this church.
The church still holds daily Mass above a crypt built from the bones of four thousand friars.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
The Battle of the Colline Gate, fought in 82 BC between Sulla's forces and the Samnites, took place close to this hillside and decided who would rule Rome.
Until the 18th century, the nearby piazza was used to lay out unidentified or disfigured corpses found around Rome so citizens could come and name them.
discovered 1936; built late 2nd–early 3rd century AD
Workers uncovered a Mithraeum dating to the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD beneath Palazzo Barberini in 1936, its walls frescoed with a scene of the god slaying a bull.
The Capuchin Crypt, right under Santa Maria della Concezione, holds the skeletal remains of roughly 3,700 friars arranged into ceilings, arches and chandeliers between 1528 and 1870.
Urban VIII blessed the first stone on 4 October 1626, and his brother Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini, a Capuchin friar, oversaw the building through to 1631.
In 1630 the Barberini commissioned Reni's Archangel Michael Defeating Satan for a side chapel, and legend held he gave Satan the features of Cardinal Pamphilj, who later became Pope Innocent X.
Aleksander Benedykt Sobieski, son of John III Sobieski of Poland, became a Capuchin friar and died in 1714, buried in the church under a monument by Camillo Rusconi.
In the 1920s the friars' large convent next to the church was torn down to make room for the new Ministry of Corporations building, though the convent was rebuilt alongside the church in 1925.
On 17 June 1973 a car bomb went off in the piazza a short walk from here, part of the wave of neo-fascist and far-left violence that shook Italy through the 1970s and '80s.
What happened at Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini's crypt?
Beginning in 1631, Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini had the bones of thousands of dead Capuchin friars dug up from an older burial ground and carried into the crypt beneath this church, where roughly 4,000 skeletons were eventually arranged into walls, arches and ceiling patterns across five small chapels.
What was here before the church was built?
The specific site held no recorded structure before construction began in 1626, though the surrounding hillside had earlier seen the Gardens of Lucullus around 59 BC and, much later, the Battle of the Colline Gate in 82 BC fought nearby.
Who is buried in the Capuchin crypt church in Rome?
Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini, who built the church and filled its crypt, was buried there himself in 1646. Prince Alexander Sobieski, son of Poland's King John III, died in 1714 and was buried here under a monument carved by Camillo Rusconi, who was later buried here too.
Why does the Archangel Michael painting in the church have a strange story attached?
Guido Reni's Archangel Michael Defeating Satan, painted around 1630 to 1635 for the Barberini family, carries a long-standing legend that Reni gave Satan's crushed face the features of a rival cardinal, Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, who later became Pope Innocent X.
What did Mark Twain say about the Capuchin crypt?
Visiting in 1869, Twain recorded a monk telling him plainly of the bones, 'We must all lie here at last,' when asked what would happen to the monk himself after death.
What happened near the church in 1973?
On 17 June 1973, a car bomb exploded in nearby Piazza Barberini, part of the wave of neo-fascist and far-left violence during Italy's Years of Lead.
