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.
This was immediately rebuilt, but the charnel house was
rebuilt from the ground up, and ended only in 1695, and
is the one that still exists today.
The
confraternity of Disciplines took care to adorn the new
ossuary: in the years 1694 Sebastiano Ricci painted the
ceiling of ossuary.
Above
the only altar in marble with the emblems of the Passion
of Jesus Christ is, in a special niche, a statue of Our
Lady Dolorosa de Soledad (Santa Maria Addolorata), dressed
in a white coat; the statue was made in the mid-eighteenth
century during the Spanish domination.
The
bones in the ossuary are from poor people died of natural
causes in the old Brolo hospital; Priori and Brothers who
ran the hospital. On the opposite side of the altar there
are some skulls of people died violent deaths, people beheaded
because they were thieves, crooks and violent.
The
Confraternity of the Disciplines in 1750 decided to build
near the ossuary a biggest church, the current church of
San Bernardino, using the old church as the new atrium.
In
the chapel to the right, since 1768, there is a family tomb
of a few relatives, the maternal line, of Columbus.
In
1738 the King of Portugal, Giovanni V, was so impressed
by the ossuary who decided to copy it in every detail and
he ordered to erected it equal in Evora, near Lisbon.
In
front of the main altar, on the floor there is a grid from
which you can see ten steps that lead to a large crypt.
Here is the tomb of the Disciplines. It has the shape of
an irregular pentagon.
Along
the sides are willing twenty-one niches on which were laid
the deceased confreres, wrapped in their dress similar to
that of the Franciscans, with their faces covered by the
cap without any ornament, with only one name written on
tablets placed on their heads, Unfortunately, for security
reasons, because the steps are uneven, this place can't
be visited.
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