Capela dos Ossos


The Capela dos Ossos is one of the best known monuments in Évora, Portugal. It is a small interior chapel located next to the entrance of the Church of St. Francis. The Chapel gets its name because the interior walls are covered and decorated with human skulls and bones.

Origin

Among the sights open to visitors is the Capela dos Ossos Church in the Portuguese city of Evora, built entirely by a Franciscan monk. For the Capela dos Ossos, an estimated 5000 corpses were exhumed, and then used by the Franciscans to decorate the walls of the chapel. According to legend, these bones once belonged to soldiers who died at a major battle, or were the victims of a plague. In reality, however, the bones came from ordinary people who were buried in Évora’s medieval cemeteries. In any event, the Franciscans arranged the bones in a variety of patterns.

Description

The chapel is formed by three spans 18.7 meters long and 11 meters wide. Light enters through three small openings on the left. Its walls and eight pillars are decorated in carefully arranged bones and skulls held together by cement. The ceiling is made of white painted brick and is painted with death motifs. The number of skeletons of friars was calculated to be about 5000, coming from the cemeteries that were situated inside several dozen churches. Some of these skulls have been scribbled with graffiti. Two desiccated corpses, one of which is a child, are in glass display cases. And at the roof of chapel, the phrase "Melior est die mortis die nativitatis " from Vulgate is written.

Poem

Inside the Capela dos Ossos a poem about the need to reflect on one's existence hangs in an old wooden frame on one of the pillars. It is attributed to Fr. António da Ascenção Teles, parish priest of the village of São Pedro from 1845 to 1848.

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