Not to be morbid, but...

reminders of death and the dead were pretty prevalent in Italy. Which is OK by us, 'cause we think that can be interesting.

We especially enjoyed the representations of skulls, which were everywhere.


And, as metalsmiths, we were excited about all the reliquaries, which are containers for holding all, or part, of a saint's body.

The rest of the pictures are in my Reliquaries and Skulls set on flickr.

One of the coolest places we visited, dealing with the dead, was the Cappuchin Crypt in Rome. We couldn't take pictures there, so this one is from itthing.com.

A very interesting place, to say the least.