Smash hit

By the early 16th century Sedlec’s bones had become so numerous that something had to be done about them, and in 1511 the task of disposing of them was entrusted to one of the monks, so beginning the great work that would become the ossuary at Sedlec. In the 18th century, an architect named Jan Santini Aichl was entrusted with its reconstruction, and then the woodcarver Rint was brought in late in the 19th century and apparently allowed to let his imagination run free and wild.

It is to Rint that we owe the existence of the most fabulous of Sedlec’s constructions: the chandelier, the coat-of-arms, the stunning urns and monstrances. I find him fascinating, possibly because so little appears to be known about him. He was simply a local craftsman, but from the remains of tens of thousands of anonymous decedents, Rint completed a monument to the transience of human affairs, carefully disassembling two of the original six bone pyramids in order to provide raw material for his constructions, and reburying what was not used beneath an iron cross in the cemetery. He disinfected the remains, bleached them with chlorinated lime, and went to work, assisted only by two members of his family. When he was finished, he signed his name in bone upon the wall, along with the name of his town, Ceska Skalice, and the year of completion, 1870, before apparently disappearing from history.

So the ossuary at Sedlec is not, perhaps, untypical, but it is unusual in the artistry of its creations, and much of that is due to Rint. The monastery that it once served now no longer exists as a Cistercian community. It was partially destroyed in 1421 during fighting between the followers of the executed reformer Jan Hus and the forces of the Holy Roman Empire, and all of the monks within its walls were slaughtered. Even here, history throws up some curious individuals to add to the colour of Sedlec’s past: the repellent “antipope” John XXII who, in addition to being accused of simony, sodomy, theft and incest, was said to have seduced and violated some 300 nuns, and was rumoured to have poisoned his predecessor, Pope Alexander V, in order to attain the papacy; and John Ziska, leader of the opposing Hussite forces, who was already blind in one eye at the start of the campaign, and was almost immediately blinded in the other. Nevertheless, he continued to lead his forces to victory until he died of plague in 1424 whereupon, as per his instructions, his skin was made into a drum and beaten by his army as they went into battle.

The monks later returned and began rebuilding, but nearly 600 years later the monastery’s cathedral has still not been fully restored, and the monastery itself now houses the offices of the Philip Morris tobacco company, its executives occupying what were once the monks’ cells. The ossuary, though, still stands at the centre of the little cemetery just a short distance from the monastery, and a steady trickle of visitors comes to gaze upon its contents throughout the year.

There is, in a strange way, something deeply moving about these furnishings of bone. The names of most of those whose bodies were used to create them are long lost to history. They probably weren’t even very important to begin with, and presumably had no great expectation that either their remains or their memories would be honoured after their deaths. But through the efforts of a monk, an architect, and a gifted woodcarver, each developing the work of his predecessor over a period of three centuries, they have been transformed, and a kind of immortality has been achieved for them. They have become folk art, and something more; for the chandelier, the candelabra and the monstrances have all been assembled so lovingly, and with such care and imagination, that they function as more than merely a reminder of our mortality, or as a macabre display to amuse tourists. In its recognition of the beauty of this flawed, temporary body that we inhabit, and its realisation that part of this beauty lies in its very transience, Sedlec is a silent hymn both to God and to the human form He created. We may be interlopers in this place, passing visitors on the way to more urgent callings, but its occupants will always be here, waiting.

And, in time, they will welcome us into their company.

The Black Angel by John Connolly is published by Hodder and is available from Books First priced £11.99 (RRP £14.99) plus £2.25 p&p on 0870 160 8080; www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy

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