BigShinyThing

The chapel of Sedlec, more often referred to simply as ‘the bone church’, sprung from an act of pragmatism: too many people wanted to be buried there. During the plague of 1318, when 30,000 were buried here. When the cemetery became too full in 1511, bones were stored inside the chapel.

After the attached monastery was dissolved, the chapel passed into the ownership of the Schwarzenburg family. They commissioned a half blind monk by the name of Frantisek Rindt (how gothic is that?) to decorate it with the bones. He set about his task with vigour, even producing a version of the Schwarzenburg coat of arms, a shield topped with a crown: a fan of shoulder blades underscored by ribs, outlined and quartered by vertebrae, the detail in tarsals and carpals. The centrepiece of this baroque riot is a chandelier hanging in the nave. It is said to be made with every single one of the 250 or so bones of the human body.

The Sedlec Ossuary is open from 9am-noon and 1-4pm in winter and until 6pm in summer. Just one of many websites devoted to the subject is here.

Sedlec also forms the inspiration for John Connelly’s new novel, The Black Angel.

Photo from Flickr