The Marble and Human Skulls Of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

Behind a 17th century facade lies Rome’s only gothic church filled to the brim with death imagery. 

 While the bodies of Paul the IV and Saint Catherine reside hidden under the deep blue vaulted ceiling of Sopra Minerva, the skeleton of Saint Vittoria is fully visible in a small northern chapel. Her remains, fully dressed and coved in thin fabric, are reclining with her skull resting on her hand. She rests in a glass alter surrounded by over 10 golden reliquaries of other holy men and women. In the wall near her feet, a small window opens to reveal yet another dressed skull. In fact, the entire church is covered in marble skulls. They appear etched, parts of tombs and as column flourishes.

The church itself was built in the 700sAD on the ruins of a temple to Minerva (built by Pompey The Great in 50B.C.) and then rebuilt in the 1380 by Dominican monks that had worked on cathedrals in Florence.