Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte, church in Rome, Italy
Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte is a Baroque church on Via Giulia in Rome, designed by Ferdinando Fuga with an elliptical floor plan. Below the church lies a crypt where bones have been arranged into decorations, including chandeliers made from vertebrae and a cross of bones on the altar.
The brotherhood behind this church was formally recognized in 1576 and began gathering the bodies of the unclaimed dead along the Tiber. The current building was completed in 1737 after Ferdinando Fuga replaced the earlier structure entirely.
The brotherhood that ran this church collected the bodies of the poor and unidentified found along the Tiber and gave them a proper burial. This practice shaped the building's name, and the bone decorations in the crypt still reflect that mission today.
The church and crypt are open to visitors, but photography is not allowed inside. The space is small, so it is worth taking your time to look closely, as many details in the crypt are easy to miss at first glance.
The facade of the church bears the Latin inscription 'Hodie mihi, cras tibi', meaning 'Today me, tomorrow you'. This phrase was addressed not only to the dead, but to anyone walking past on the street.
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