Mummies of Venzone

Mummies of Venzone
The mummies of Venzone
Type	Naturally preserved human remains
Periods	Middle Ages to early modern period
Location	Venzone, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
Site notes
Excavation dates	17th–20th centuries
Discovered	1647
Condition	15 surviving bodies
Management	Municipality of Venzone
Public access	Yes; five mummies are on permanent display

The mummies of Venzone are a number of mummies found in Venzone, Italy in the 1600s. They were mummified by natural processes, and, while such mummies exist elsewhere, the cause of the Venzone mummies' preservation in particular still remains a mystery.

When de Brazza’s article and this subsequent translation were published, there were doubts that remained, with the process unable to be replicated, as well as the “conditions that assure its [the fungus’] life and reproduction” still remaining unknown. Another precarious position, as the Literary Digest observes, was in knowing that the mummies would likely never increase in number. The practice of burying dead in churches was later banned, thereby preventing much further observation of the natural process.

Discovery

The first Venzone mummy was discovered in 1647 during work to enlarge the Cathedral of Saint Andrew the Apostle in Venzone. The body, later known as the Gobbo di Venzone ("Hunchback of Venzone"), was found in a fourteenth-century tomb beneath the cathedral. Its discovery revealed an unexpected phenomenon of natural preservation.

Additional discoveries followed over the following centuries. By 1906, F. Savorgnan de Brazza, who later studied the mummies, reported that 42 were known from Venzone.

Condition and preservation

The Venzone mummies are notable for the degree to which their physical features have been preserved. Writing in the early twentieth century, F. Savorgnan de Brazza reported that the bodies remained readily recognizable despite the passage of time. The first mummy discovered reportedly weighed only about 15 kilograms (33 lb), while others weighed between 10 and 20 kilograms (22 and 44 lb).

Scientific study

Mummy found in the Roman cemetery chapel nearby cathedral Sant'Andrea Apostolo in Venzone

The Venzone mummies have been studied since the early twentieth century in an effort to determine how the bodies became naturally mummified after burial beneath the Cathedral of Saint Andrew the Apostle. Despite more than a century of investigation, the mechanism responsible for their preservation remains unresolved.

In 1906, Italian naturalist F. Savorgnan de Brazza examined the bodies and proposed that their preservation resulted from a fungus he identified as Hypha tombicina. He reported that spores of the fungus were present in both the burial chambers and the wooden coffins in which the bodies had been interred, and considered it the most likely explanation for their natural mummification. However, scientists were unable to reproduce the process experimentally, and the environmental conditions required for the fungus to survive and reproduce remained unknown. The subsequent prohibition on burials within churches also prevented further observations of newly interred bodies under the same conditions.

In 2003, University of Minnesota professor Arthur C. Aufderheide re-examined the evidence. He noted that the bodies had originally been buried in a crypt with a native limestone floor, which may have contributed to their preservation. He also found no organisms comparable to the Hypha fungus described by de Brazza.

Scientific study has been limited by the number of surviving bodies. De Brazza documented 42 mummies in 1906, but only 15 remained after the 1976 Friuli earthquake. According to Aufderheide, local authorities have generally declined requests to collect new samples, requiring researchers to rely largely on previously collected cultures and preserved material.

Exhibition

The mummies after the 1976 earthquake

The Venzone mummies have been displayed publicly since the nineteenth century. In 1845, they were moved from the crypt of the Cathedral of Saint Andrew the Apostle to an upper chamber of the nearby Cemetery Chapel of San Michele. Following the 1976 Friuli earthquake, 15 of the 21 mummies then housed in the Rotunda of San Michele were recovered from the ruins.

Today, the surviving mummies are housed in the crypt of the Cemetery Chapel of San Michele, a 13th-century chapel located beside the cathedral in Venzone. Five mummies are on public display as part of a permanent exhibition dedicated to their history and preservation.