Santuario di San Bernardino Alle Ossa

Third stop for the day was another of my "unusual" finds - the San Bernardino alle Ossa. This church in Milan is best known for its ossuary, a small side chapel decorated with numerous human skulls and bones.

In 1210, when an adjacent cemetery ran out of space, a room was built to hold bones. A church was attached in 1269, renovated in 1679 and destroyed by a fire in 1712. A new bigger church was then attached to the older one and dedicated to Saint Bernardino of Siena.

The ossuary's vault was frescoed in 1695 by Sebastiano Ricci with a Triumph of Souls and Flying Angels, while in the pendentives are portrayed the Holy Virgin, St. Ambrose, St. Sebastian and St. Bernardino of Siena. The part that intrigues me the most is how the niches and doors are decorated with bones. It seems so sacrilegious yet amazing at the same time. Once again it was something we had to get our heads around.Read more