26o 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Nov., 1904. 



NaLtvirocl Mvimmies. 



Bv Francks a. W'ei.hv. 



I\ the ancient parish church of \'enzone, situated in the 

 extreme north of Italy, some twenty miles above Udine, 

 at the bifurcation of the valley known from time im- 

 memorial as the Canale di Ferro (long the high-road to 

 Germany, and still to Carnia — up which, on the one 

 hand, the railway passes to the Austrian Frontier at 

 Pontebba, while, on the other, the historic River 

 Tagliamento flo^s down from the Carnic Alps to the 

 plain of Friuli) are thirteen tombs that possess the 

 natural property of mummifying, or, more properly, 

 desiccating, the bodies deposited in them. In the course 

 of one year or less, more certainly in two, such bodies, 

 clothed and placed in wooden coffins, are as a rule 

 completely transformed, and become dry and light, and 

 vellowish-grey in colour. The skin remains intact and 

 resembles parchment ; the bones are perfect, held in 

 place by the dried ligaments and articular capsules, 

 more or less covered with muscular and tendinous 

 fibres, which, with the nerves and blood-vessels, ad- 

 here together in a desiccated mass. Teeth, hair 

 (beard, eyebrows, eyelashes), and nails are all pre- 

 ser\ed in astonishing perfection, the fluid parts of the 

 body alone disappearing. When extracted from the 

 tombs, the mummies .'ire covered with a layer of dark 

 yellowish nioidd or fungus, that disappears little bv 

 little, and the cutis, at first blackish and flexible, be- 

 comes a pale yellow, in colour and texture exactly like 

 sheepskin. Thev are extremely light in weight, vary- 

 ing from three to six kilograms. 



The process is not effected with equal rapidity in all 

 cases, and fails altogether in some instances (in which 

 ordinary dissolutiftn then takes place) — the reasons for 

 this not having been discovered. The tombs in the 

 church are twenty in number, but only thirteen, as 

 said above, have this property of desiccation, and of 

 these, again, seven succeed much better than the 

 others. All are constructed with brick walls, cemented 

 with common lime, and closed hermetically with slabs 

 of stone or marble. It is, however, a curious fact that 

 the process is not inhibited by the free admission of 

 air and water, one of the most perfect mummies having 

 actually been discovered floating in water. In dimen- 

 sion the tombs are about i metre 90 in depth, bv 1.50 

 in width, and 2.00 in length. The inscriptions on the 

 covers show that they belonged for the most part to 

 ancient and noble families of \'enzone, but three at the 

 foot of th" choir deser»e special mention. The first 

 held the remains <T one Boleslaus, Duke of Schlesia, 

 who had, perhaps, returned from the Crusades in the 

 suite of the Emperor Conrad III., in 1149 ; in another 

 rested .\goslino, Prior of Briim in Moravia, and Bishop 

 of Concordia, \'ic;ir Patriarchal, who on June 22, 1392, 

 was slain on the banks of the Tagliamento bv Nicoi^i 

 Savorgnan for complicity with the Patriarch in the 

 murder of Federico .Savorgnan, his kinsman ; and the 

 third must have covered a pilgrim, since the stone is 

 inscribed with the words, 'hie jaccl Laiircntiiis de 

 Bacia, and a rude sculpture of a hand holding a 

 pilgrim's staff. 



The first mummy was discf>\ered in 1^37, when, in 

 rebuilding the Chapel of the Rosario, a "sarcophagus 

 inside the church (now^ standing outside the Xorth 



door) was opened. ^^■ithin it was found a coflfin in good 

 preservation, and within that a handsomely-clothed 

 mummv also in good preservation. The tomb bears 

 the arrns of the Scaligeri, with two sculptured angels 

 carrying away the soul of the departed. From its 

 velvet wrappings, the mummy presumably belonged to 

 this familv. Unfortunately all the ancient records of 

 X'enzone were destroyed by fire in 1547, so that no 

 previous documents exist to throw light on this, and, 

 perhaps, earlier discoveries. The Gobbo (Hunchback), 

 as he is called, is still preserved, and, like the rest of 

 his companions, shows no sign of perishing from ex- 

 posure, though he has suffered considerably from the 

 rough handling of injudicious visitors. For many 



ij^- 



years no more was thought of the phenomenon, until 

 in the i8th century other similar mummies were dis- 

 covered in other tombs, after which a number of 

 successful experiments were made (eighteen up to 

 1S31, twentv-one after that date), until burial in the 

 church was prohibited for sanitary reasons. The last 

 two were exhumed in September, igoi. The 

 \'enzonese frequently go to look at their relatives, and 

 take pride in recalling familiar characteristics. The 

 broken arm, e.g., of one of the latest subjects, is 

 demonstrated with much satisfaction. 



Xapoleon I. visited V'cnzone in 1807, and proposed 

 to make .in Imperial Necropolis in the little mountain 

 city, but upon his downfall the project was abandoned. 

 Francis I. of .Austria, in i8ig, and Ferdinand I. in 

 i<S4.S, also visited this strange cemeferv. 



The thirty-two extant mummies are ranged round 



