Paul Koudounaris

The remarkable stories of beloved pets - from the famous and unusual to the everyday - memorialised at burial sites around the world, accompanied by a rich selection of archival photos and the author's evocative images of their final resting places. When a little dog named Cherry died in 1881, his owners arranged for a grave in a nearby gatekeeper's...

A macabre, spectacular and thought-provoking survey of human remains used in decorative, commemorative or devotional contexts across the world today, from the author of Heavenly Bodies and The Empire of Death. Memento Mori takes the reader on a ghoulish but beautiful tour of some of the world's more unusual sacred sites and traditions, in which human remains are displayed for...

In 1578, a labyrinth of underground burials was discovered in Rome, containing the remains of thousands of individuals assumed to be early Christian martyrs. The bones were disinterred and sent to many Catholic churches and religious houses in German-speaking Europe to replace holy relics destroyed during the Protestant Reformation. Reassembled by skilled artisans, encrusted with gold and jewels, and richly...

In this tour de force of original cultural history, Paul Koudounaris takes the reader on an unprecedented international tour of macabre and devotional architectural masterpieces in nearly 20 countries. This book brings together the world's most important charnel sites, ranging from the crypts of the Capuchin monasteries in Italy and the skull-encrusted columns of the ossuary in Évora in Portugal,...