After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Sicilian Catacombs of the Living Dead

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

*Warning: this episode contains discussions of child death*Deep beneath the sunny streets of Palermo Sicily, the Capuchin Catacombs are home to over a thousand people, most of them still standing in their Sunday best.Why did the residents of the catacombs want to be buried standing up? And how have their remains survived centuries?Joining Anthony today as a special guest co-host is Cat Irving, Human Remains Conservator at Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh, to take us back through this fascinating history.Edited by Anna Brant and Hannah Feodorov. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beneath the streets of Palermo lies a place where the boundary between life and death feels strangely thin. In the Capuchan catacombs of Palermo, thousands of bodies lined the walls, dressed, posed and in some cases, still watching. How did this extraordinary sight begin? And why did generations choose to be preserved here? In this episode, we descend into the catacombs. homes to explore their origins, their rituals and the stories of those who remain, asking what these silent figures reveal about the living and our enduring desire to be remembered. From the death-soaked depths of the Palermo catacombs, welcome to After Dark.

Hello there, and welcome to After Dark. My name's Anthony. And my name's Kat. And today we are talking about a location in... Italy that has captured the imagination of people all over social media because it is macabre. It is fascinating. It is, it's enlightening. You can learn an awful lot from it. And I'll try to dance around it too much longer because we're going to be talking about the Capuchin Catcathcumes of Palermo. And who better? To guide us through this than of course our brilliant Kat Irving, who's been with us all of this month,

Kat is the Human Remains Conservator at Surgeons Hall in Edinburgh. And we have spoken about this place before. I think the last time that you were in with us, before you were co-hosting, we were talking about this particular place. And I suppose just to give an idea of what, if you were to walk into it now, because I was looking at YouTube videos of this last night in preparation for today, because it's one thing for us to describe,

history of it, which we're about to do and the different things that have occurred. But to experience it, which I have not, but you have, so you can tell us about this. It is an underground series of chambers, I suppose you would say. And in some of the walls, there are hollows, person-sized hollows, in which the remains of people are displayed upright. In most cases, although there are some lying down, as well. Yeah. And for the ones that are upright, well, and the other ones as well, they are clothed, and we'll talk about what they're clothed in and why that has become so important.

And they are relatively well preserved. Again, we'll go into the details of that. It is, if you are into death history and anatomy and the macabre side of history, and I said this to Kat before we started recording, there is something macabre there. And I'm not sure Kat necessarily agrees with it. But I mean that in a kind of an atmospheric way as opposed to a judgmental way, put it that way. It is like stepping in to a different world

where these dead folk are looking down at us in some cases as you kind of wander through their space. And these are their clothes that they were wearing in life. And it's just tantalizing. And then there's some more difficult parts to, it, including a section where children are displayed. So we'll talk about all of this, but just to get the very, very basics of what this was and is, what are these particular Palermo catacombs?

Why have we come to have them? Okay. Well, the Palermo catacombs, you've got 1800 bodies in there. So it's a lot of people. You walk through them, it feels like they're watching you. You know, it doesn't feel like this is a one. one-way thing. You know, it feels like as you're going through, you're observing them, but they're observing you as well. It does, it does have that kind of feeling that this is,

this is an exchange, which of course, it can't be because these are dead people. But this is largely where they wanted to be. You know, the, this was a choice. You know, this was, this is not something that we have, we have taken people. We have foisted on them. For the most part, they are people who this is where they wanted their bodies to end up. Now, I talked about this idea of it being slightly macabre or whatever. And again, I mean that atmospherically, but I haven't been there. How many times have you been there? I've just been there once.

It's enough. One time would do me as well, although I could imagine that we would both go back multiple times. If we could. Talk me through that experience from a firsthand point of view. You are walking down these kind of platform gangways. It's all sectioned off to a certain extent. you can, it says where you can go, where you can't go. But what are the feelings of that, that feeling that you're being watched, even if you're not really, how did you find yourself interacting with those spaces and those remains?

Yeah. I mean, it's a very, a very strange thing. I mean, first of all, you know, it is a holy site and it is a site of internment for these people. You know, they're not buried, but this is where their bodies have ended up. But it's also a place you can visit. effectively it's a tourist attraction. Yeah. So, you know, always with these things is that kind of tension there. And I remember when my husband and I first arrived at the catacombs, and you go there and you go down the stairs and you end up in this space, there were a lot of people.

There was a tour bus had, you know, had just arrived, people had came down. And that feels strange. You know, it feels almost too busy for that space. So, of course, that's what's there for in some ways for people to come and see. So that seemed great. But the tour bus quickly, they left very quickly. And effectively we had the place to ourselves. And it was a quiet, very, very peaceful, very contemplative place.

But you do feel, even though it was very peaceful and I say there was no one there, there's definitely that feeling that you're not alone, and that these people around you. And the sense of the people is very, very strong, which is wonderful, but also somewhat intimidating. I'm not going to lie. But also fascinating. And it's interesting as you walk through, you know,

it's divided into areas. So the first people you see are, you know, in monk's robes. And then you will go and see people in more ordinary clothes. There's a corridor of women. And they're such beautiful laces. You know, these are people that. are there in their best clothes. Yeah, yeah.

But also, because their bodies have been preserved, they've shrunk slightly. So it's almost as if, it's almost as if it's, you know, they're wearing clothes that are a little bit too big for them, you know, like children dressing up. I've never thought about it like that. You've totally blown my mind.

Of course, that's one of the things. I mean, I was just thinking, as you were describing that, it was like, yeah, it's not like there's just, you know, sometimes when you go to places that there are skeletons, your office, for instance, where you're like, oh, okay, that's a skeleton. And you can distance yourself to a certain extent from the life that that person might have had. And suddenly it becomes a collection of bones, which might be educational, it might be something else.

But for me, when I was looking at this, this was all just on images that I was seeing or on YouTube or something, because, again, I haven't been there myself. But the clothes and the hats and the gloves and all of that were adding another dimension, where it was like, suddenly these are starting to resemble things. that are life-like in death. But you just added a whole other layer to it there about that small element that I hadn't accounted for, which is that they have shrunk,

and then the clothes haven't. And so they do hang, obviously. It's like such an obvious thing. But that adds to the ghostliness, if that's the word I want to use. How fascinating. I just hadn't really clocked that. But anyway, we'll come to the clothes,

because I think it's really important to talk about that because then that leads us to the people. But if we're talking about the origins of these particular catacombs, we need to go to the 16th century. So talk us through where this originated from. Okay, so the caption order set up in Palermo in 1534. So Palermo in Sicily. So, you know, that island off the top of the end of Italy.

And the caption order are follows of St. Francis. But they're really, you know, this is the time of the Reformation, you know, things like that. You know, there's a whole lot of questions about the way that things should be done. And the captions are really dedicated to a sort of radical poverty, a life of prayer and almost sort of self-denial. Could never be me. No, me neither. That's fine. Nobody's asking me.

It couldn't be me for another reason. But you know what I mean. Yeah. So they set up in Palermo. And there's a limited day. number of them. And of course, lifespan, some of them die. They're interned on the site. In a sort of cyst, you know, almost like a place where they can basically just put the bodies and wall up. You know, they're not buried in a traditional burial sense. They're not underground.

They're not underground. They're not being, you know, they're not being, you know, grave dug, that kind of thing. They're all being put into the same space and then covered over. Yeah. of course there's only a limited amount of time you can do that for you know they space starts to fill up and they quickly realize that they're going to need an actual place to put the body and this is when they start to develop you know digging out the catacombs which they can put the bodies into when people die and once they've done this they think well we'll get those bodies that are already in this cistern and we'll take those out

and we'll put them in the catacombs and they do that and discover that 45 of the bodies are very well preserved. You know, they haven't rotted away to, you know, to skeletonize in the way that you would usually expect to see. So now I'm thinking in their mindset, miracle. Hallelujah. Yeah, that's exactly what they think, that this is godly preservation.

I'm going to say, as somebody who, you know, this is kind of what I do, I look at the way people rot and why they don't rot, No, who gets to say that? I look at the way people rocked. Jesus, weft. Okay, go on. Yeah, they're probably cramming those bodies in. It's probably also, you know, Sicily is somewhat warm. You know, particularly for me, coming from Scotland, you know, this is probably a cool space somewhere, you know, away from that heat. And they're also being packed in. That's stopping oxygen getting in. And you need oxygen for that decomposition process.

So, to me, I think this is probably the reason why they look a bit better than they would be expected. So they take 40 of those bodies and these new catacombs, they put them in niches around the walls. Now, at this point, is it upstanding niches or are they lying? The impression I've got is that they're upstanding. I'm not 100% certain there. But yeah, they're displaying the body that's been preserved. And we're getting into a time when people are starting to think. about being buried inside churches anyway, you know, getting to a point where people are thinking,

well, when I die, I want to be close to those relics, things like that. Things that are, they think are going to get them a bit of, you know, good grace for getting into heaven. So a little bit of divine intercession. And so you get these miraculously preserved bodies. That's where people want to be. Yeah. You know. If I cannot look decrepit. Yeah, absolutely. So people start applying to be able to be put into those catacombs as well. Now at first they largely restrict it to the men from the caption order. But by 1783, pretty much anyone can get in. As long as they're making sure that they, you know, alighting candles at the right point. Apparently if you don't go along and light candles on the 2nd of November, you know, all Souls Day, you know,

for a certain number of years, then body gets turfed out. Where do they turf at two? I imagine they go bury somewhere. But, you know, there's that sort of commitment that you have to be involved somehow. You know, you have to be showing up, lighting the candle, saying the prayers for the souls of the dead. And beyond the 2nd of November being All Souls Day, what are we saying happens on All Souls Day? Why is it significant that you need to be there on that day? Well, this is a day when you're supposed to go and remember the dead.

You know, you're meant to go and pray and, you know, ask for help. for the dead, you know, it's the day of the dead in Mexico. Yeah. So this is a time when you're really thinking about your loved ones who have passed on. And so now they're asking you to go, light a candle, and look them in their strangely weird decaying slash not decaying eyes. Well, their eyes are going to be closed. Their eyes are mostly gone.

And we will, we will talk. Don't worry, we will talk about eyes. Okay, perfect. Thank God. Yeah. But of course, you know, you've got these bodies that were preserved in that system. These new bodies that are going to get put in, they haven't been preserved. Why?

Well, they haven't been in that space. Of course. So when they're brought in, they have to do something that's going to get them a bit of that preservation. A little bit of a helping hand. Right. So like Botox for dead people. You can use that. Don't worry.

You're welcome. Yeah, that's how I'm going to think. You're like, I'm never going to use that. Okay. That's how I'm thinking of it from now on. But no, so what they would do, they would get the body in. they would wash it in vinegar. Okay.

Yeah. And I have a thing when I'm talking about the way we've tried to preserve bodies where I do a lot of comparisons with food. Right. So you think about, I don't know, your jar of pickled gherkins, you know, that you've got in your fridge. The thing that's preserving those is the vinegar. I love gherkins.

Yeah. Sorry, it's not over here. You can think of me next time you have gherkins, preserving dead bodies. So that vinegar is preserving them because the acidity of the vinegar is killing the bacteria. Yeah. Yeah. So therefore the bacteria can't eat the flesh.

So the bacteria is one of the things that's involved in the decomposition process. So you're getting, the vinegar is going to give a helping hand. You know, you're getting clean. And then they would prop them up in a room over a sort of series of terracotta pipes. So they'd be kind of upright. there'd be warm, dry air. Okay. You know, and again, this is going to...

Smoking them. It's not that warm, you know, we're not talking, but just that kind of helping dry them out. So you're getting a sort of natural mummification. And this position upwards over these pipes, that's allowing the fluids that are, you know, when things are going a bit squishy inside, that they can, that can run out. Where does it, oh God. Into those pipes. No, but what does it come?

out of, everything, any hole you have. Yeah. Jesus. And you're just leaking from every orifice. Eyes, nose, mouth. Well, it's mainly going to be the lower one. Oh yeah, because you're sitting up. Yeah.

Yeah. Just going to be leaking stuff from your bum. Okay. And so they would be left there. How long? You don't know. You weren't alive in the 18th century. But like, are we talking weeks or days?

No, no, no. We're talking longer than that. So probably. six to eight months. If you're a larger person, maybe a year. They're sitting over these pipes for a year. Well, they're dead.

They're not just like... No, I know. Yeah. That's a crucial part of this whole... Yeah. So it's not quite like you're made to be sat in a seat for eight months. Fair enough, fair enough.

Yeah. Are they in their clothes at this point? Probably not. Okay. Yeah. You don't want to get those... That's what I mean. That's going to...

Stuff's going to happen there. And of course, this is not an exact science. Sure. You know, so sometimes after that time people will be skeletonised. And that's all right. Yeah. They won't discriminate just because, you know, you haven't done it properly. Right.

You know. But it is really interesting because, I mean, obviously, as I said, I live in Scotland and we have a slightly different climate to Sicily. Yeah. Just a wee bit. Just getting hairs, but yeah. But my first job when I left university was I worked in the city mortuary. I did not know this until today, by the way.

Oh, did you not? That's fascinating. Yeah, no, no, I did. So I would, you know, I would work with people who were recently deceased rather than now and working people who died, you know, 100, 200 years ago. And so one of the things you would sometimes see if people had been left for a little while in a centrally heated flat where the air is dry, you know, that you would get a mixture. You would sometimes get decomposition like in the abdominal area, but particularly if it was a, a thinner person, you know, not someone like me, you would get mummification in their hands and their feet, you know, in those extremities because the central heating had provided a warm, dry

air. And then you would go home and order McDonald's. Like how, this is one of the things that I don't understand about these types of jobs. And I'm very grateful for everybody who does them because it's fascinating and all the rest of it. But like, you are confronted, particularly in the now present towns like you've worked in a mortuary today, right? You're confronted with this, I was going to say otherworldly, but that's exactly what it's not. It's very much of this world. But most people will never encounter what morticians are encountering. And then you have to go home and watch Emmerdale.

Do you know what I mean? How do you do? What do you do with your mind to go, right, we're going to have to park Elsie now because that was pretty horrific. and now I'm just going to concentrate on Gemma Collins in the jungle. Like, how? What, how? Drink. Drugs, heavy drugs.

Well, I do like a glass of wine. And it's possibly one of the reasons we've just had lunch that I am a vegetarian. So, you know, there are things like that. But there is a, you know, there are times when it is a difficult job. You know, frequently it's a difficult job. You know, you're dealing. with people who have died and that's something that, you know, brings a lot of sadness with it and also a lot of contemplation about your mortality and the mortality of your loved ones.

And I think in a lot of ways it's something that has made me a better person, you know, that you have that in your mind. Yeah, that you are, it's a privilege in many ways, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. To come in at that point in somebody's life cycle. Yeah, absolutely. And that's it that. Most of the people that I know who work in this kind of industry are very special people

who are deeply committed to what they do and to making sure that the dead get the best care. Do you say death cycle? You know, we say life cycle. Do weirdos like you say death cycle? No. I don't think I've ever said death cycle, but it works. You know, because there is a death cycle. There is a, you know, you go through a process.

And then, you know, again, in the most natural sense of the work, you know, that that will bring, you know, if you were just being buried in the ground and the way that we should be without all the kind of, you know, things that go on with coffins and bombing and stuff like that. If you just buried in the ground, your death will, and the decomposition will bring about nutrients that will then give life. Yeah, yeah. And I do like that idea, actually, as you say, if we weren't interfered with in terms of coffins and all that. I think this is a whole different episode. We're going to have to do this at some point as well. But so we're talking, let's get back to Palermo. We're back in Sicily. It's now the 18th century. We've been adding bodies, some people, so we had the monks to begin with. There was just the capuchins. And then we have other people from just society that are coming in. I would imagine, because again, I've seen this online.

It's not the biggest space in the entire world. So I imagine at some point there's going to have to be a, hold on, we can't take too many more bodies going on here. Well, it is actually one of the things that surprised me, you know, I'd seen so many pictures I'd read about so much when I visited. it's a larger space than you'd expect it to be. It's a sizable area.

But they do eventually say that they are not going to take any more bodies. So after the 1880s, we only get two more internments down there. So they've had over 300 years. Yeah. And that's 1800 bodies. Okay, okay.

So, okay, we get to the 1880s and they're like, that's enough now, Francisco. We're not having any more. So they just make alternative arrangements to bury the dead. Just going into, you know, burying the dead in the way that we would possibly think of as more traditional. You've mentioned mummification before in that, and you've mentioned twice in relation to just, you know, kind of everyday mummification that might happen in the modern sense, and you've mentioned it in terms of some of the processes that they've gone through

here in 16th, 17th, and now 18th, and 19th century, Sicily. A lot of listeners might have an idea that mummification involves bandages and, you know, the kind of ancient Egyptian idea of just give us a little bit more clarity on what exactly we mean in terms of this particular type of mummification. So mummification, we're talking about a desiccation of tissue. Right. So drying out. Drying out. Drying the tissue. So the water is coming out. So again, you know, that warm, dry air so that you get in the water out. And again, you know, we've talked a bit today about what you need for the decomposition process, bacteria, oxygen, water. So without that water, you're not getting that element needed for the decomposition process.

So again, that will preserve the tissue to a greater or lesser extent. And as I said, it wasn't always as successful as they hoped. Some people were skeletonized, but that was fine. We'll just pad the skeleton out with some straw, things like that, and then we can put the clothes on. In terms of those people that are being patted out or not, as the case may be, depending on what happens to them, are they going beside the Capuchin Friars that were there since the 16th century? Is there a different place for lay people? Is there a different place for men and women? Does class come into this? How are they displaying these people? What is there a system? Well, I mean, that's a really, really interesting question because we get, you know, an area which is for the capital. themselves. So they have their own corridor. Then you get a corridor for the professionals, you know, people like doctors and lawyers and artists and soldiers. You know, so again, quite a

array of different people. Then there's a corridor for the women. Okay. You also get a chapel for the virgins for, you know, the young women who, you know, haven't married. And then there's an area for children. Okay. So just, so in that sense, families are not really allowed to be together? There are some exceptions where you will have, you know, some mum and her children, things like that, but not, you know, you're not getting an entire family unit, mum, dad, 2.4 children, that sort of thing. That's not necessarily who you're encountering in this way.

No, no. Okay, let's go. And, I mean, you said about class. Obviously, you know, we have this sort of thing where you see early on we're told about, you know, you've got to bring the candles, you've got to visit that kind of. the thing. But from 1837, there is a price list. Now, when you say price list, you mean to enter into it? To have your body interred in the catacombs. So what does the list entail? Like the whole process? So, yeah, I mean, this is basically, you get your, you know, your time

in the drying out room, as it were. Like a sauna for the dead. Sauna is a damp. No, we don't want that. Yeah. What's the other one? Not the sauna, the steam room. That's still damp. That's still damp. Okay, sorry, I can't make the As you go, keep going, pretend it isn't something. Yeah. And then, you know, your place along these corridors where you'll have your body put. So a man would be 12 ouncey,

and an ouncey or an ounce is a Sicilian coin from the time. A woman, 10 ouncey, a child, eight. And then if you want something, you know, if you want to be a bit fancy or have a more ornate place for your body to be put, that's 20. I'll take it. Yeah.

It won't. It's actually pretty pretty pretty. fine. But so, but what we're saying is, not everyone's going to be able to afford this. Exactly. You know, it is something, it is something with a price on it, which is going to be, you know, only for people with a certain amount of money. And again, the fact that they're calling it the corridor of professionals, you know, it's not, it's not the corridor of, you know, peasant farmers. Yeah, yeah. And it is that it kind of highlights some of the tension that's in that, of death is the great leveler. I'm like, not always. Not always. You know, and it's like when

you had the London Railway, there was a first, second, and third carriage. You know, there, there is still things going on with how much money you have. And that's being very much on display there. Okay, well, I want to talk about, because the individuals are remarkably present, given the ways these things are displayed, let's talk about some of those individuals. And the first, here we go, with some Italian pronunciation that you can correct me on. The first guy that is on my list is brother Sylvester de Gubio. Sylvester de Guibio, yes. He is one of the friars of the Capuchina Order.

So he was actually, he died in 1599. Oh, wow. So he was the first internment after they had discovered these bodies. So he was the first one they're trying this kind of mummification help on. And he's there, he's got a, a sign round his neck telling you who he is. So you've seen him. I've seen him.

And he's wearing his, his monk's robes, which are known as the Capuchino. Stop it, is it actually? Is that where the name of the coffee comes from? That's where the name of the coffee comes from. Jesus, every time you come here, there's some there's bougie for candle.

There's Cappuccino from the Capuchin's robe. That's where Capuchino comes from. Yeah. Unless you're bringing shit like this to these episodes, don't bother showing up. This is the trivia we need. That is crazy. Okay, so he's there.

He's got his little sign and it's just giving his date of birth. You know, his name is date of birth. So, you know, he's, we know who he is. So again, just that thing of seeing someone knowing their name, you know, I always find them, there's something so important about hearing people's names. And, you know, we were talking about, you know,

Burke and Hare earlier and the fact that, you know, so many of the victims we don't know names, you know. And so the fact we can see this is just so amazing to me, you know. It's almost like that thing, and I've always found this. I love a graveyard. I'm going to surprise nobody. And you go through, and it's almost like you're recalling these people from the dead. Sometimes I do say their names out loud.

I love going and saying the names aloud and actually, you know, just thinking, who was the last person who said this? Yes. You know, like just that name, you know, calling that person. And it could be hundreds of years since somebody has said that. I mean, that is, again, love history. Why am I having so many love history? things today. Right, so that's Sylvestero. Let's move on to Francesco Talari.

Francesco, there you go. Okay. Francesco Talari. Yeah. So he's someone who holds a sort of club in his hand, and he, near the door. And we actually get reports of him from Alexander Dumas. Oh, right. You know, no less. Yeah. Author of the Three Musketeers. He visits it in 1835 when he's 33 years old. And he asks why this guy has, you know, something in his hand. And he's told, oh, well, we've promoted him to the status of concierge. So he's basically the dormant. And the idea is that if any of these people try to get out, he's there to stop. But isn't that interesting? Because it also says something about how we interact. Of course, all of this says something about how we interact with the dead. But this idea that they can, even jokingly, get up, move.

around, potentially trying to escape. But it's also about like the living need and assurance that one of their own is going, we're not going to come and scare you at your dinner table. Good old Francesco is going to keep them back with his club. And do we know what Francesco did or was or who he was in real life? No, I don't know. If there's that information, I haven't came across it. But yeah.

But that's even more fascinating because what that does then is we've reinvented him in death to be this doorkeeper. Isn't it these kind of, and I mean you know me, you know that this is exactly what I'm writing about, the idea that we give people these afterlives. You know, that it's, we, you know, even beyond the grave, where we're having this interaction with the world. Yeah, and I love it. I like that fascinates me so much. And it's also one of those things. And I don't know if you find this, but the concentration of death study and the interrogating death in the past and systems of death. For me, I find it a huge comfort.

There's something in the fact that we're all on this trajectory together. Even that guy said it in an Instagram recently, even that guy on the internet who says he's not going to die. I think his name is Brian. Of course, it's probably Brian. But like he's going to die. We're all going to die. But so has everybody else that's gone before us. And there's so few people that get to enter into what they study.

So for instance, if you're a neuroscientist, you don't become a brain when you die. But when I die, I become part of history. So I get to become the thing that I study, and that is, like, fascinating to me. And actually, you get to do it too as an anatomist. You get, you will become anatomy, you are that now. But you know what I mean? Like, in a different way. But I also would like, I'm planning to donate my body so I can be dissected when I die so that I can get that, you know, give back, as it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're so charitable. But do you, as an individual, do you find comfort in it? Absolutely. You know, those days when you just think, Jesus, why do I do this? I can't, washing the dishes, I can't be bothered with this. One day I'm not going to have to do that anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That sort of thing, you know, I do find, I do find something, I mean, there's also, not going to lie, days it's absolutely terrifying as well, you know, you know, it's not one thing, but, you know, that there is something I feel that, you know, a bit of rest. Yeah, just a bit, I love a nap. But yeah, you know, it's, you know, it's, you can. can feel like that and also hope that's far in the future. Yeah, I think I'm going to live until I'm 93. That's specific. Yeah, it really is and I don't know where I've gotten that from. Do you have a

date when you're 93? No, no. Not 93 in 42 days. No, I think it's, I also think I'm, Shane, my husband is younger than me, but I think I'm going to outlive him. Do you have an instinct on that? Oh, no, I think, I think, I'll go first. Do you think? Yeah, no. I think, like, technically I would probably, there's four years between me and shit, like, technically I should probably die first, but I don't think he'd be able to cope, so I'll just hang on until he's gone and then I'll cootle along afterwards. Yeah, have a couple of weeks rest and then and then and then just go, now that's, that's it. And you'd need a bit of rest after Shane, after a lifetime of Shane. No, but like, he needs rest from me now. I'm such a lot. Anyway, this has gone off the pieces now

altogether. Antonio, oh, God, they only get harder. Who, who listed these and made them harder every single time? Antonio Prestigiamo. Antonyu Presti Giacamo. I'd never took Italian, as you can tell. Oh, we do know when he died. He died in, oh, 1844. Okay, so he's a bit later. Tell me about him. He's an interesting one because he looks a bit better preserved than some of the people

surrounding him. Okay, and not just because he died in 1844. No, no, because he didn't just get the, you know, the treatment in the room where, you know, to get mummified. He has a little bit of, a bit of arsenic and mercury added. Oh, and that's going to help. And this is, we're starting to get into the early days of what we would think, of as modern embalming.

We're not quite there yet. But there are starting to be publications which are talking about this. There was a Frenchman called Ganal who's published on... It's all right. So many French people. Yeah. They did a lot of work on this.

Ganal talked about ways of embalming and he is looking at things like arsenic. And again, arsenic will become the embalming method of choice up until discovery of formaldehyde in 1890s. So, you know, he's got some of that going on as well, which has preserved his body well. Again, because arsenic is going to kill all those bacteria really well, in the same way that if you took someone would kill you. Yes.

Yeah. But ultimately, you know, for the dead person, that's not an issue. It's just an issue for the bugs and bacteria that are going to feast on them. So these chemicals have helped, as well as the drying out, as well as the whatever else they were doing in the 16th century. Now he's got these chemicals to help. But because it's 1844 when he's done, I'm presuming we know a little bit more about what his life looked like or no? Well, there's an interesting thing.

And again, this is one of those ones. I mean, you know what this is like in history where it's difficult to draw the line of what's true and what's legend. Oh, okay. Because another thing about him is that he has eyes. Open eyes. Nope. Did you see this when you went there? Yeah.

And, you know, everyone else, you know, the eyes have gone. We've got blank sockets. He has eyes, but they're not his eyes. It's literally going to be my next question. Yeah. He's got glass eyes. And he had specified. I was going to say, who the hell did that.

Again, the story goes that he wanted this. Because Antonino was a Sicilian Lothario. Uh-oh. And, you know, he had had lots and lots of affairs. It's alleged that he was killed in a duel with the husband of one of his lovers. Same. Yeah. That's how I'll go at 93.

And so he had said that when he died and he was in the cappuccine crypts, he wanted to be able to watch the women walking past him. Weirdo. Oh, okay, that's weird. Yeah. So this is a story about Antonino. Okay, so I'm going to, just for balance, right? I'm going to say that poor Antonino, is that a name, Antonino? Antonino. The poor Antonino might have been just some fella who died, some gay fella who died, he's making this up now.

And he never had any interest in women in that way at all. But then somebody like, they put your man, Francesco on the door with the club and gave him that job. Maybe somebody just. Whether or not this is a post-mortem story that has been attacked. to Antonino. Well, guess what? I have a picture of him here and I'm going to describe it.

Okay, first of all, that's petrifying. But this doesn't really make sense in everything that you've told me. I'm glad that we had the conversation before I saw the image. And now you can talk me through this a little bit more. Right. So what we have is the figure of a dead man.

Oh, he's surrounded by skeletons who are lying flat on shelves. But he's standing upright in a kind of a... Think of it as a doorframe, but, you know, it's a little bit tighter than that. Now, we know he's 19th century, because Katz told us he is, and he has kind of, I suppose you could call it Dickensian hair in that. It's kind of a bit short on top and then the sides are a bit longer. Although, is it true that people's hair continues to grow after they die or is that not real? No, it's not true.

Oh, because the scalp receipts. The scalp receipts, not the hair grows out. Okay. So he has had that, okay, his hair was that long then when he died. It's still very dark. It hasn't discolored. His face is like you see, I don't know if this is a little bit crass, but I'll say it, like you see in zombie movies. We'll put this, we'll put this on social media so you can see it.

Are you allowed to put this on social media? Yes, you put loads of, you put worse things on social media, so this will be fine. But, and here's my question mark, he is not dressed in typical 19th century clothing. If anything, it looks a little bit more friar-like, although there's a kind of a short-sleeved tunic-type garment that's cinched at the waist, and kind of billowy sleeves. His hands are kind of at the forefront of his legs. And he is very much peering down, isn't he?

That is, he's watching there. I mean, again, you've got to remember that 19th century Sicilian fashions are probably not the same as they are in, you know, London at the time. So there is going to be that sort of kind of cultural difference. You know, he may have been a lethario, but he's not an aristocrat. Yeah. So again, you know, again, we're going to have cultural differences that way.

Next on my list is Giovanni paternity. Am I saying that rise, paternity? Giovanni patamiti. Okay, I'll take it. Now, this says he died in May 1911. He's one of the two people that come along after this sort of like, you know, closing of interments down in the catacombs. So he's a later person. He was a US vice-consul.

So, you know, an important man, which is why an exception would have been made. Would he have had to request to be put in there? So he wanted to be in there. But not much. I've not been able to find much more out about him. But yeah, he's one of our later interments down there. And so there's very few exceptions, right? Yeah.

Particularly into the 20th century. So it very much is that I've had to request. And then somebody whoever oversees the processes now had to go, okay, we can allow this one in. then this next person is probably one of the most shocking in some ways. I'm shocking. I don't know. You need to be really careful with the language around these things, right? Yeah.

But striking. She's certainly striking. Let's put it that way. And her name is Rosalia Lombardo. She died in 1920. So again, this is one of your exceptions of bronchon pneumonia. But, and here's the thing. And, you know, just to be aware, this, we are going to be talking about child death here.

So just be aware of when you're listening. She is two years old. She's two years old. And this is an image. Well, I'll describe it in a minute, but tell us what we know about her. Well, I mean, she, as you said, she died at two in 1920. She's a young girl. And her parents were clearly heartbroken by her death.

And I mean, this is something that I know that you came across as well, Anthony, that, you know, up until, you know, we get well into the 20th century, child mortality was so much higher than it is today. And you see so much that's written which says, well, people just coped much better with it. And that is just so patently bollocks. You know, and I feel like little Rosalier is an example of this. Her parents were so devastated by her death that they, They wanted to preserve her body and her dad requests an embalmer. We think it was a man called Alfredo Salafayo, who was a Sicilian, and he wanted her body to be embalmed. And embalming at this point, you know, as I said, we get formaldehyde in the 1890s. This is kind of new. And Alfredo Salafio had invented his new method of embalming. He keeps it secret.

That is a theme in things. I research people who are preserving bodies, not wanting to tell people how they did it. But he's brought in and he preserves Rosalia's body for her parents. And she's been described as the most beautiful mummy in the world. You know, she looks, when you see her, she looks like a little girl who's asleep. It is striking. There are images available online. I have an image in front of me here.

You know, it's not gruesome because, as you say, it looks like a child that's asleep. But when you have the information that this is, somebody who's passed away, then it does obviously bring a different level to the image. This is an image that the one I'm looking at that was taken in 1982 and Rosalia died in 1920. So we're talking about 62 years later and she looks like she's fallen asleep. Yeah. Still. Now, when you saw Rosalia more recently than that, because you've been there in the last 12, 24 months?

When was it? Yeah. A year and a half ago. Recently, right? Yeah. Is Rosalia in the same situation or has things changed in the last few years? She still looks very peaceful and very beautiful. She's kept slightly separate from the other bodies that are turned down there.

So she's almost in a sort of glass coffin, which is climactically controlled so that she is in the perfect. temperature and humidity to keep her body preserved. Her skin has darkened very, very slightly. And, you know, she's kept away from bright light, but she still looks very sweet and very peaceful. So striking. Yeah. Did her parents join her?

Do we know if her parents? Probably not, right? Because there's only two exceptions and her parents are not. And that's it. You know, this picture is from 1982. this is the time when her parents will die, not, you know, and she will still be there as a perfect, you know, their perfect child.

Yes, her parents probably were dying around that time. Gosh, when you think about, I hadn't really thought about that either. It just brings the life back into focus. Yeah. I suppose one way to end on this, and I hope you don't think this is too personally, you can dance your way around the answer if you want to, but certainly for me, you know, I was raised Catholic,

belief in an afterlife was very much present, a very controlled afterlife. It was heaven, hell, purgatory, there was strata, all that kind of thing. My life experiences since then have obviously made me shirk any form of Catholicism and organized religion generally. And my belief in an afterlife has gone as well. I would count myself as a believer that this is what there is, that this is the heaven, this is the miracle, we are very, very lucky to be here, or some of us more lucky than others, of course, and that this is what there is.

And the more I study history, the more I feel that and see that, and innately it becomes more true to me. You work in far more close proximity with the dead and remains and that than I ever will. How has that affected your perception of what happens

once we get to the beginning of the death cycle or the end of the life cycle. Has that informed your belief system? Does it change? Does that continue to change with you because you're encountering it so often? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know,

and I hinted at this earlier, I think one of the things that it really does is make me very present of the now. You know, that kind of feeling that, you know, you don't put it off. You do the things you want to do. You enjoy what you're doing. you know, you really try to live for the moments that, you know, that are good for you.

And that definitely makes that feel very, very important, you know. And I think it does make, you know, working closely with death does make so much of life seem more important. And I think that's a very important thing for me. Yeah. You know, that it really, really does give value to things, you know. you see with Rosalia, you know, you see that parents' grief, you see, you know, how that is. And I just kind of feel like, you know, working with death, you just, you just sort of have to sort of like realize that you just enjoy it while you can. Do you know what? You'd be, I've said this about myself, which is really weird because who says this, but like, you'd be a very good death douler as well, right? You're like, who would want to do that. People do it. I have friends who are death dolers. Yeah, I would do it. I think it would be fascinating. Again, one of those privileges, right, to see somebody on that course.

I think it's like, have you ever been with somebody as they're dying? Yes. Yes. And that's what I have as well. And that's because we were all just talking earlier today about our encounters with death. And I think across cultures, even within the British Isles and Ireland, that varies hugely from different place to place. We've talked about this in the podcast before. But I saw my first dead body when I was six.

I was in my 30s, my mid to late 30s before I was with. somebody as they died. But that remains, and I think probably always will be, one of the greatest privileges of my life to have been in that room at that particular time and to see somebody out and try and have as much of an easeful part in that transition as is possible. Is then, it's interesting because then in my head it goes, that's where it ends. But of course, for you, in some ways in terms of your work, that's where it begins. Yeah. And so there is this other journey then that our bodies go on. And that's the thing. I mean, Again, you know, I will talk endlessly about the things that I think are a privilege about what is I do, the things that are really humbling about what I do.

But one of the things about that is what you can learn about people from their remains. You know, those little, you know, you never see a whole life that way. But of course, you know, I would argue that with most people that you encounter, you know, who are still alive, you're not, you're only seeing a small fragment of them. Of course, yeah. You know, so, but you just get little glimpses into what their life was like. And that is incredible. And one of the amazing things about the Palermo catacombs is because you have people there in their own clothes, you know, what they're wearing, is that you're not just getting what their remains can tell you, but, you know, their clothing choices, learning about what they want. And as I said, you know, seeing in the corridor of women some of the beautiful laces and things like that, you know, romantic images, you know, I will die and I will have my black sweeping lace.

It would be lovely, you know, that kind of thing. But, you know, just being able to get that kind of, you know, see them like that, you know, and see them with that part of themselves, you know, not just their body, but how they wanted to represent themselves to the world. You're getting a sense of the life in death, which sometimes a monument marker can't really give you. That's why I think the clothing is just so. I mean, I'm looking here before we go of that picture of Rosalia and she got a little bow in her hair, for instance.

And isn't that so touching that says it? It says so much about not just her and her age and her status as a child, but as the parents and the care that they would have picked this out and that they would have given this to her as she was being displayed in her death. It just breaks your heart though, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's such a tangible reminder of, you know, the tying of that knot and the act of love. Even if it wasn't the parents that did that and it was an embalmer or the team, it's still

an act of love and respect of the life that's gone before. I'm going to leave that there. I won't do too much selling or telling you to give reviews or everything. Just because it's such a lovely conversation. Kat, thank you so much for bringing that conversation to us because I've really, really enjoyed having it. But if you would like to learn a little bit more about this, first of all, I'll direct you to anatomical Kat. That's Kat's social media and you have a lot of death history on there and further anatomy. But is there anything in terms of reading, of course, go and visit if you can, Sicily.

but is there anything in terms of the read, oh my God, this is a good time to mention your book. So you are writing a book on this very topic. Well, I'm currently writing a book just at the end of the first draft called Conversations with the Dead. And one of the chapters on that, in that will be on Rosalia Lombardo. So again, we will be looking at ways of preserving the body and what that tells us about the people. You know, as I say all the time, what I'm really concerned about when it comes to human remains is who, the people are, who they were. So that will be my book out with HarperCollins spring 2028. But if you do want to learn more about the Palermo Catecums, I would highly recommend a book

by Ivanchensi, an Italian author, and he has a brilliant book on the Palermo Catecumes. And it's in both, it has text in both Italian and in English. Okay, I'll need the English. I'm afraid, as you can tell from my pronunciation. Listen, I hope we've given you something to think about. about today and to maybe experience history in another way because I don't know, it really does impact how we live our lives today. And I think this is a really good example of that. I'll leave you to your thoughts and your learnings from this episode, but thank you so much for listening.