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Father Delisi's Chronicles of his trip to Termini Imerese, September 2002
Chronicle #3 on Visit to Termini Imerese
In Chronicle #1 I described our visit to the crypt of the church of San Osola (Ursula.)
In the afternoon on Friday we visited the Church of the Annunziata (Annuciation) whose beauty dome dominates the city. It is located slightly below the Cathedral. There also we were shown a hole in the floor about 4X4 feet and looking down we saw more caskets with dry bones almost up to the top of the area below. It is hard to determine how many hundreds of years bodies were placed into that hole.
From there we went to the old Cathedral of San Giacomo (James.) Only if one knows the right people with the right keys is one able to enter into these sacred places now falling into ruin. With San Giacimo one sees the beginning of the Gothic arch indicating an eleventh century construction. It is now difficult to determine if bodies were buried at one time under the floor. This old cathedral is now covered with plexi-glass which is slowly disintergrating.
On Sunday morning I visited the church of San Francesco in order to get some altar breads. The sister there spoke English and I asked the Capuchin if there were any bodies buried under their church. He said that at opne time there were, but all the bones were transferred to the present cemetery.
Sunday evening my cousin pointed out to me the church of San Fransesco De Paulo and said that the catacombs of that church were more impressive than that of San Orsola. Perhaps one of you might someday check out this site. Now I am more determined that it was a common practice up to the late eighteen hundreds to bury in the crypt of the churches.
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Copyright© June 24, 2021, Laura L Johnson, Termini-Imerese.org, Comuni di Italia.org
