SAINTS OF THE UNDERWORLD - The Catacombs of Palermo with Iain Sinclair

  • 2 reviews
  • Dissenters Chapel

Description

  • Something A Little Different, Theatre/Arts and Walks & Tours
  • Tickets from £12.00
  • n/a
  • Sat, 2nd Oct 2021 @ 15:30 - 17:00
  • 15:30 - 17:00

Some 400 years ago Palermo’s Capuchin monastery found its cemetery was at full capacity. So the monks excavated new crypts beneath the existing graves, and the first resident, brother Silvestro di Gubbio, was experimentally embalmed and vinegared in his Franciscan habit in 1599. The practice began to appeal to wealthy families and soon an honour once reserved for members of the order was licensed out first to noble Sicilians and in time to less prosperous applicants.

The families of the deceased residents would pay regular ‘indulgences’ to the monastery - not only to keep their loved-one’s remains in the crypts, but to be able to visit and to re-clothe the body as its garments frayed and disintegrated. Non-payment would entail their late relative having the indignity of being withdrawn to a backroom shelf until their next of kin stumped up again.

In his talk, Iain Sinclair will discuss the history of the catacombs revealing how the 8,000 corpses and 1,252 mummies proved to be a "life-changing experience of death and all of its smoky mirrors".


Tickets £12 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Kensal Green Cemetery.

      Iain Sinclair

    Iain Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. He is the author of numerous works of fiction, poetry non-fiction, including Lud Heat; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Downriver; Radon Daughters; Lights Out for the Territory; Rodinsky's Room, with Rachel Lichtenstein; Landor's Tower; London Orbital; Dining On Stones; Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk; American Smoke and London Overground. Downriver won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award. He lives in Hackney, East London. 


    Image credit - Ian Wilkinson's A Final Supper created from thirteen mummifeid figures photographed in the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo. This image, copyright of Ian Wilkinson, comes from the book "Our Late Familiars" created in collaboration with Iain Sinclair https://discover.goldmarkart.com/our-late-familiars/

Offers

Promotions

Tickets/Times

Ticket Event time Cost
Saints of the Underworld
includes a delightful gin Cocktail
15:30 - 17:00 £12.00

Location

Address

Dissenters Chapel, Kensal Green Cemetery, 391 Ladbroke Grove, London, W10 5AB

Nearest Station

Ladbroke Grove (Tube)


Getting there

Organiser

A Curious Invitation and Antique Beat
This year Antique Beat and A Curious Invitation will be hosting The London Month of the Dead, a series of 36 different events investigating the capital’s relationship with its deceased residents. Events will include a private view of the Museum of London’s bone archive, taxidermy workshops, macabre walking tours and private views and a programme of weekend death salons with talks on subjects ranging from public dissection and body snatching to reincarnation and funereal folklore. Each salon will feature a pair of speakers, authorities in fields such as osteology, forensic pathology and the paranormal, who will offer their own perspectives and insights on mortality in the city. Each year the London Month of the Dead donates 20% of all ticket revenue to one of London's magnificent seven cemeteries. In 2017 all of the death salons and concerts will be hosted at the Dissenters and Anglican chapels at Kensal Green. In previous years the month's programme has centered around Brompton Cemetery but the chapel is now undergoing important restoration work, a project the London Month of the Dead is proud to have supported. The London Month of the Dead has been curated by a Curious Invitation and Antique Beat to inform, entertain and provoke on the subject of death and London cemeteries.

T&Cs

1. The ticket holder voluntarily assumes all risks and danger incidental to the event for which the ticket is issued, whether occurring prior, during or after the event. The ticket holder voluntarily agrees that the management, venue, event participants, DesignMyNight (WFL Media Ltd) and all of their respective agents, officers, directors, owners and employers are expressly released by the ticket holder from any claims arising from such causes.
2. Tickets are issued subject to the rules and regulations of the venue.
3. Please check your tickets, as mistakes cannot always be rectified.
4. Occasionally, events are cancelled or postponed by the promoter, team, performer or venue for a variety of reasons. If the event is cancelled, please contact us for information on receiving a refund from the responsible party. If the event was moved or rescheduled, the venue or promoter may set refund limitations. It is your responsibility to ascertain the date and time of any rearranged event.
5. The venue reserves the right to refuse admission and may on occasion have to conduct security searches to ensure the safety of the patrons.
6. Every effort to admit latecomers will be made at a suitable break in the event, but admission cannot always be guaranteed.
7. We regret that tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded after purchase.
8. Tickets are sold subject to the venue or promoter's right to alter or vary the programme due to events or circumstances beyond its control without being obliged to refund monies or exchange tickets.
9. If this ticket is re-sold or transferred for profit or commercial gain by anyone other than the promoter, venue management, DesignMyNight or one of their authorised sub-agents, it will become voidable and the holder may be
refused entry to or ejected from the venue.
10. The venue may operate a No Smoking Policy.
11. The promoter, venue management and DesignMyNight accept no responsibility for any personal property.
12. The event listed on the purchased ticket is strictly for ticket holders who are over 18 years of age. Identification may be required.

Customer Reviews (2)

Close

Confirm

Closing the checkout will empty your basket. Do you want to continue?