This next one isn’t necessarily a museum, but it’s definitely an interesting historical place to visit if you ever find yourself in Urbania, Italy. Well, it’s, like, the only attraction in town but don’t let that stop you. Since 1833, eighteen mummies from the Medieval period stand in individual glass cases behind the altar of the Chiesa dei Morti, or the Church of the Dead. If you’re wondering how these mummified individuals came to be, let me tell you a story. First there was the Brotherhood of Good Death, a group founded more than 400 years ago in 1567. They took it upon themselves to pay for the burial of the poor and keep records of the deaths. All was well and good until the 1805 Napoleonic St. Cloud edict said the dead must be buried outside the city limits. When digging up corpses, authorities were surprised to find a number of the deceased in a perfectly preserved state (probably due to mold and climate) so the mummies were brought to the church for research and display. Today docents lead visitors on a macabre tour of everything one would need to know from the mummification process to how each person died.
Chiesa dei Morti – Church of the Dead, Urbania, Italy
