Church of the Dead

Vincenzo Puccini, was the Prior of The Brotherhood of Good Death and his mummified body is in the centre of the display. His mummy is wearing the traditional white robe and black hood of the brotherhood.
La Chiesa dei Morti, also known as The Church of the Dead, is located in the city of Urbania, Italy. It’s a huge tourist attraction, and the draw is the dead bodies that have been on display there since 1833.
The mummies are the result of a group called “The Brotherhood of Good Death”. The religious group was founded in 1567 and through the ages, took on the task of burying the dead even if there was no one to pay for the burial, they even kept records of the deaths.
There are eighteen preserved bodies that rest in glass cases behind the church’s altar for all to see.


These mummies show a level of preservation similar to that of the bodies of pharaohs in Egypt. But it’s not man who preserved these corpses, rather, it was nature. A particular mold that sucked the moisture out of the eighteen bodies, allowed for such impressive preservation.
Tourists visiting the location are told the stories of the dead there, as tour guides and guards know their tales well. One mummy was a mother who died during a cesarian section, another was murder victim, and one died of heart failure after a struggle with Down’s syndrome.
The mummies here may not have been famous in life, but in death they’ve become stars in The Church of the Dead.

Read more:
Church of the Dead offers macabre mummy display | Catholic Online