although Rosalia Lombardo had been dead for more than 100 years the masterful preservation of her body continues to Intrigue visitors to the capucin catacombs and at night she does something that horrifies Witnesses it was the 6th of December 1920 in southern Italy in many households preparations had already begun for the celebration of Christmas with the delicious Aroma of canoli and Buel already wafting from the many kitchens but in one humble palmo home there was no cause for celebration for the young officer Mario Lombardo it felt as if his whole world had just been crushed by
a terrible catastrophe at he sat by the C of his beloved little daughter Rosalia he could no longer keep the tears at bay on the previous evenings he and his wife Maria had listened with despair as Rosalia coughed weakly fever blooming over her Flawless complexion they felt each hacking cough as if it was their own lungs struggling for air to breede Mario held the little girl hand and wiped a tiny beads of perspiration away three times the doctors had come and although Rosalia swallowed the bitter medicine he brought without complaint there was no difference in
her condition now he could feel that the end was near and it destroyed him Rosalia was the love of his life her blue eyes were the color of Heaven and her delicate blonde curls were those of the angels in the Chapels he lived for the moments when he came home and she would run to the door rushing into his arms and babbling happily about her day as if it were the most important thing in the world and in a way it was as their only daughter she was the center of both her parents' lives and
that Center was about to collapse all through the nights her breathing had grown weaker several times he had woken up in a panic thinking that she was already gone but each time he held his watch glass to her lips there had been a very faint film of moisture but now she was still the peaceful composure of her tiny body was a cruel lie that whispered she's fine when in fact she was not as he had done numerous times before Mario held the watch to her mouth and waited this time there was no moisture across the
glass plate Rosalia Lombardo has stopped breeding the little girl had been a joy to her parents from the moment she arrived Mario Lombardo and Mario diasa had been sweethearts since they were very young and when they got married they were certain that God would soon bless their Union with the birth of a child but as the months passed Maria did not conceive she would look with longing in her eyes at the little children of other women happily laughing and playing with each other in the Market Square she shared this secret grief with her husband and
together they attended Mass every day to pray for the child that had so far eluded them but then as spring slowly gave way to Summer Maria greeted him one day with wonderful news she was finally pregnant Mario felt Overjoyed at the thought that he would soon be the father of a precious little boy or girl to him it did not matter which it would be he would cherish and protect the child as a precious gift little more than a month after the war ended and people were celebrating Victory and reunification Maria gave birth to a
daughter they nmed Rosalia now celebration and laughter also found a place in their home but in the world outside people were threatened by a Secret Killer too small to detect but devastating in its impact Mario Lombardo and his family were lucky enough to escape the Spanish influenza pandemic but many thousands were not that fortunate when Roselia began to walk she followed her mother everywhere often pretending to copy or performing household tasks Mario's heart overflowed with love for his daughter one day he decided he would throw a huge party of Thanksgiving on the day she turned
to but that day never came less than a fortnight from her second birthday rosala developed a cough which seemed worsen to full-blown fever he fetched the doctor but it was already too late Rosella Lombardo died with her heartbroken parents clustered beside her bed hours passed or was it days Mario LOM braced himself for the Heartbreak of acknowledging that his beautiful daughter the apple pie of his eye was gone if only he could freeze time at this terrible moment if only he could somehow capture the image of his daughter while fleeting Whispers of Life still clung
to her body and then he thought of a man in the city of poo who could possibly be capable of such a miracle while the idea grabbed hold of him Mario knew that he had no time to waste Gathering up the limp body of his 2-year-old daughter Maria took her through the door and into the street IM mere 6 months earlier Mario Lombardo had carried Rosalia high up on his shoulders to watch the parade accompanying the Festival of her namesake St Rosalia a medieval holy woman after whom his daughter had been named she had been
delighted with the colorful spectacle brimming with such liveliness that it seemed impossible that she would pass only half a year later these were difficult memories to shoulder never again with this little girl squeal with delight or run into her father's arms as Mario walked through these familiar streets he was haunted by the hopes and dreams that died with Rosalia and then he reached his destination not many men worked as late or as hard as Alfredo salafia but his Fame reached even to the Far Corners of the world there was talk that he had even visited
New York to promote this miraculous wonders of his Perfection fluid and it was in this Perfection fluid that Mario now put his fate unlike most people the embalmer was not surprised to be confronted with yet another dead body but the age of the child did cause him to pause for a moment with a voice still husky with unshed tears Mario Lombardo asked this master of embalming what his price was he barely listened to the response of course he would pay anything whether he could afford it or not to keep his Rosalia as fresh as the
day she breeded out her last to be able to remember her like that from childhood Alfredo salafia had been fascinated by the grizzly topic of death as a young man he had considered becoming a doctor but what really interested him was finding a way to arrest the natural process of decay in his early experiments salafia used animal bodies once he refined the combination of chemicals he was able to achieve unprecedented success the ancient Egyptians removed most of the body's organs to be pickled wrapped in lillin cloth and then stored separately in canopic jars but Alfredo
salafia came up with an alternative solution his method infused the organs with a mysterious substance which he refer to as its Perfection fluid which preserved them intact within the body of the deceased this was a vital breakthrough as the organs played a major role in speeding up the process of Decay with the success of his animal subjects Alfredo salafia applied for permission to work with human cadavers his methods were unprecedented but highly successful and soon the demand for his Services increased his subjects included prominent citizens and even one former prime minister of Italy but there
was one body that would stand out and ensure safia's own mortality when he was finally alone with the lifeless body of rosalo Lombardo he hesitated for a moment he had not expected that this assignment would affect him so deeply but the memory of her poor father's grief raw and witheral still haunted him it made him recall another body he had worked on 6 years earlier that of his own dear brother nesto yes he understood the grief of loss very well and that was what motivated them in his quest for Perfection as an M Balmer it
confided him to see Ernesto not quite returned to life life but with his face Supple and taught shielded from being devoured by the ravages of nature upon the mortality of man and he knew that his work would bring Comfort to Mario Lombardo as well the capucin catacombs where Rosalia Lombardo found her final resting place was originally set apart to receive only Friars from the capin monastery when they passed on but when people of Palma heard of this unique burial chamber of course they wanted in for their own dearly departed relatives or even themselves it became
quite fashionable to be interred within the Crypt in exchange for a generous donation of course among those who have been included our famous artists military personnel politicians diplomats and even a head of state one can only imagine what made Mario Lombardo decide to let his daughter resc here eternally it was obvious that he and Maria cared deeply for this little girl they were willing to invest a considerable amount of money in having her embalmed by someone who was considered a master of the art in order to preserve her delicate youthful appear and then had her
interred with this space where rich powerful and famous people had found their final resting place Rosalia does not rest alone in the Capuchin catacombs over a period of 300 years the remains of 163 children have become interred here of these 41 child mummies reside alongside her in a special children's Chapel while some of these children have decayed to Mere skeletons many of the child bodies remained almost as well preserved as Rosalia their tiny bodies doll likee arrested in a semblance of the lies from which they were snatched their names are unknown the name plates that
once identified them and told their stories have long faded to their present eligible States who were they had they been happy how had they passed away and who did they leave behind these questions are now impossible to answer 100 years ago being a child was a dangerous business diseases such as tuberculosis typhoid fever scarlet fever pneumonia and even ARA had all been potentially deadly without the intervention of modern medicine in fact penicillin a game-changing drug to treat infection was discovered only 8 years after rosal's death although it was only mass-produced in the early 1940s as
part of the war effort although that was too late for Rosalia and her dimin of companions in the children's Chapel it made the world a slightly safer place for the generations that came after them but while all the child mummies in the cachin catacombs serve as a grizzly reminder of the fragility of Youth there is one thing that only this special little girl does at night Rosalia Lombardo was one of the last bodies interred within the capucin catacombs today this very unique structure and its unusual residents are visited by millions of tourists each year out
of the hundreds of mummies on view her glass coffin is a popular exhibit the fact that she has remained so well preserved fascinates visitors but there is one specific element to her corpse that continues to mystify people numerous Witnesses have reported seeing something strange happening when they look down into rosalia's face perhaps it has something to do with her appearance she lies in her glass covered coffin like a diminutive Snow White her tiny body covered by sheets as if she is only a sleeve a ribbon gathers her childish curls together she really looks like she's
about to awaken in a structure containing 800 dead bodies it can be unsettling to imagine that any of these skeletal beings could come to life that would be the stuff of a horror movie but Roselia due to her unique state of preservation does not look dead which is exactly why what tourists and visitors report about her is so disturbingly horrifying they claim that Roselia sometimes appears to Blink or perhaps just move her eyelids a little but what really happens behind her glass window this mysterious effect makes it easier for people to believe in ghats and
life after death would it not be possible that a mischievous Little Spirit snatched from life to too soon might linger here to play a trick or two on her admirers other people speculate that the effect might be caused by minute fluctuations in temperature within the casket that causes the child's eyelids to shift a little to offer glimpse of her stunning blue eyes but according to the Italian paleopathologist Dario pomino mascali this effect is only an illusion created by the variances in the lights that siphons through the room's Windows as external light sources shift at the
different times s of the day and night so apparently does the position of rosalia's eyelids it has nothing to do with anything paranormal it's just a trick of the light but that's not the only enlightening Revelation Dario pomino mascali had to share about Rosalia Lombardo in recent decades several studies have tried to penetrate the continuing mystery of this little girl's embalming Andre nin a Polish archaeologist who specializes in egyptological research has suggested in the 1980s that the preser a of roselia's body had been achieved through the injection of liquid wax this theory was Revisited in
2009 by documentary team who claimed to have gained access to a copy of salafia memoir and asserted that paraffin wax diluted with ether had been injected to keep the facial features plump and lifelike but a detailed analysis failed to conclusively prove the presence of paraffin Dario piumino mascali believes that he may have acquired a definitive answer or at least an important clue by tracking down a relative of Alfredo salafia he gained something that previous researchers had lacked the unpublished notes of the famous embalmer these documents detail the ingredients salafi used when working with bodies like
that of Rosalia Lombardo they include an interesting mix formalin a solution made from formaly was a relatively new invention when salafia began his experiments and he may have been one of the first to use it in inbombing other other ingredients include glycerin zinc sulfate chloride and an alcohol solution these were injected at specific entry points and in carefully calculated quantities roselia's body continues to be monitored for signs of Decay her casket is now infused with nitrogen gas to further protect it from the ravages of time rosalia's parents went on to have another daughter whom they
also named Rosalia this little sister hopefully lived a long and healthy life honoring the memory of a little girl who left the world too soon more than a hundred years ago roselia's father begged Alfredo salafia to keep his daughter beautiful forever and so far it seems that this pioneering in Balmer delivered on that promise what an amazing story of the enduring power of a Father's Love how far would you go to preserve the memory of a loved one if you have a story about a powerful farewell let us know in the comments we would love
to hear from you thank you for watching and see you in the next video
