The Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini is a church of the Capuchin friary, an offshoot of the Franciscans, in Rome.

It boasts some impressive artworks by artists like Guido Reni, but its shocking and elaborate crypt steals the show. Like many Indian sadhus, friars take vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience. The fictional Friar Tuck from Robin Hood is probably the most famous friar. In the case of the Capuchins, named for the hoods on their robes, the idea of the fleeting nature of individual identity, symbolized by the skeleton, became a central message to the public. The Capuchins didn't just drink cappuccinos all day: unlike monks, friars do not isolate themselves from the community.

If you've ever read the Marquis de Sade, you'll find that, with every page, you understand, even more, why they locked him up. His political rants are clever, but his writing demonstrates, all too well, the downside of aristocracy: celebrating cruelty for its own sake was his favorite way of affirming the extreme decadence of his "high" birth. Many nobles, like the son of Rudolf II, patron of Arcimboldo, have gone off the sadistic deep end, but de Sade made cruelty into a philosophy, in order to create a moral alibi for his unremarkably self-indulgent behavior. As one of the most extreme pleasure-seekers since the ancient Romans, it's remarkable that the Marquis said, of the crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, "I have never seen anything more striking." From floor to ceiling, the crypt displays bones of Capuchin friars, categorized by anatomical region and arranged into a series of elaborate altars and tableaus, collected by the Order over a period of hundreds of years. There's the crypt of pelvises, the crypt of shin bones and thigh bones, and the macabre displays of skulls. It's kind of like magnificent underwater coral reef formations, until you realize you are looking at human remains.

In a sort of large-scale prequel to Weekend at Bernie's or The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, the Pope's brother ordered the Capuchin Order, almost four hundred years ago, to transport the remains of their fellow friars from their old hangout near the Trevi Fountain to Santa Maria della Concezione. Of the crypt, filled with the bones of 4,000 Capuchin friars, Jean Baptiste de Chatelain wrote, "'This must be a revolting sight', said I to my friend; 'and what appears to me yet more disgusting is that these remains of the dead are only exposed in this manner for the sake of levying a tax on the imbecility of the living.'"

While Christianity, and spirituality in general, seeks to be a celebration of life, the art of this crypt appears to be something else entirely: a warning and an admonishment, like the brutal morality stories of Hans Christian Andersen, reminding visitors that their bodies, too, will resemble those of the friars one day. Your beach bod, or your "perfect body," of the type sought by the classical Greeks and Romans, is no different from these, the friary was saying, so focus on your deeds and intentions, because they will weigh on the scales of justice.