“If death unites us, why can’t we share our grave?” This is the question posed by an epigraph on a grave which was found in 20ll and which the community of Aulla had restored in 1644. As of 1662 many works were carried out: the building of the stone vault, of the marble floor, the stucco decorations of the inner walls, and the building of the precious marble liturgical fumiture.
In those years the richest families of Aulla and the town community renovated the 17 graves which were partially explored and which gave out some precious objects: 33 crucifixes, 10 rings, rosary beads, buttons, coins, 231 devotional medals, and a precious pendant-reliquary which enshrines printed prayers, leaves, and cloth-relics (?) between two drawings of Christ and of the Madonna. Some tools have accompanied the bodies into the graves: barber’s razors, thimbles, scissors, tailors’needles, and a glass flask which probably contained blessed water.
Anothèr gravestone bears an inscription which reminds people that death is just a passage to another life while waiting for Resurrection:
do not believe, wayfarer,
that this is a grave
it is training for eternity
1664
