"There is a crack, a crack in everything: this is how light can enter" sings Leonard Cohen, and this is ultimately the message delivered by the bones that can be admired in this book: death is a eternal wound, and at the same time a crack. Far from the concept of a cemetery, with its peace and the emotions it brings to the surface, the term "ossuary" usually evokes an impression of gloomy coldness, but the three places presented here are very different. These are the three main Italian religious ossuaries in which the bones are used for decorative purposes: the Capuchin crypt and Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte in Rome, and San Bernardino alle Ossa in Milan. Infused with the sentiment of mortality, with vanitas , these ossuaries are capable of making an unexpected shift: on the one hand they embody the memento mori as an exhortation to trust in a future life so that the earthly existence constitutes a test bed, on the other hand they offer shining examples of macabre art. They are the suggestive and exciting, but at the same time pitiful, expression of a "high" feeling, that of impermanence, of the inexorability of detachment and of hope in the Resurrection. Decorated with the same bones that they are supposed to contain, they pursue the Greek concept of kalokagathìa , that is, making the "good death" also beautiful on an aesthetic level, disassembling the physical body to rearrange it in pleasant and sumptuous configurations and, by doing so, transcend it. The clear and in-depth texts of this book historically frame the spaces in the fideistic context of their time and in the Christian tradition while the images immerse us in these sacred places full of fear and fascination. Page after page, the fantasies of skulls and bones thus restore their wonder to death , making it mirabilis , worthy of admiration.

The series:
After the first volume dedicated to the Catacombs of Palermo and the second on the Fontanelle Cemetery in Naples , this book continues the publication of the series #BizzarroBazar , edited by Ivan Cenzi. The series, which includes bilingual Italian-English texts, aims to enhance and explore some hidden wonders of our peninsula and stimulate reflection on its artistic and cultural heritage, giving the reader that sense of amazement and enchantment that is try joining a Wunderkammer . The absolute protagonists are the splendid photographs by Carlo Vannini, one of the most popular art photographers in our country , which offer themselves to the reader as a real guide to viewing.

The author and curator:
Ivan Cenzi is an explorer of the uncanny and a collector of curiosities.
Since 2009 he has been curator of Bizzarro Bazar , a blog dedicated to everything that is “Strange, macabre and wonderful”, which in a short time became the Italian reference point for this kind of issues. Over the years Bizzarro Bazar has dealt with wunderkammer, anthropology of death, museums and anatomical collections, history of the circus and traveling fairs, early science, classical and modern art, alternative sexuality and in general everything what is found on the margins of culture.
He combines his editorial work with a dense activity of lecturer, and collaborates with international museums and universities. Since 2019 he has been teaching for the master in Death Studies and for the degree course in "Psychology of end-of-life relationships" at the University of Padua.
He has contributed to several publications, prefaced publications of contemporary art and organized cultural events.

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