Czech Republic Guide
South Moravia
Kapucínská hrobka
Opening time: Tues– Sat 9am– noon & 2–4.30pm, Sun 11–11.45am & 2–4.30pm
The macabre Kapucínská hrobka, a gruesome collection of dead monks and notables mummified in the crypt of the Capuchin church. Until the eighteenth century, Brno's moneyed classes forked out large sums to be buried here in the monks' simple common grave, hoping to find a short cut to heaven – righteousness by association, perhaps. The bodies lie fully clothed, some with hollow-eyed skulls, others frozen in the last painful grimace of death. Just to drive the point home, signs in Czech chime in with "What we are, they once were; what they are, we will be".