I’ve been forced to reference Vienna’s history books more than once now, but today is where we’re going to take a deep dive into those history books. And we’re going to do so with the aim of exploring one particular character in Vienna’s story: the House of Habsburg.
The House of Habsburg is one of the most important dynasties in European history. Their origins are bit murky, but their collective ascent to nobility as a family can be traced all the way back to the 900s. They were lords controlling patches of territory in central Europe who—over the course of generations—fought their way to the very top. Starting in 1440 when they were at the helm of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburgs were in control of major world powers until the early 1900s.
The Greeks really started to invest in and expand Pompeii around 450 BC, but a couple of centuries later, it would ultimately pass into the control of the Roman Empire. By the year 78 AD, it was a large, affluent, well-to-do town in the Roman Empire, which was already more than 3x older than the modern-day United States.
Oh yeah, and it also sat right next to a giant volcano called Mount Vesuvius.
In 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted, releasing approximately 100,000x the energy of the atomics bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII COMBINED. At this point in history, the Bay of Naples was already a densely populated area, which made this one of the deadliest eruptions in history. Pompeii, as well as a few other towns in the area, such as Herculaneum, were pretty much wiped off the map, their inhabitants burned and/or suffocated by the violent pyroclastic flows.
Seriously, nothing can prepare you for how creepy this place is... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'll start from the beginning. The Capuchin Catacombs are always placed highly on people's lists of things to do and see in Palermo, and it's easy to see why. It's just SO outrageous! Before we dive into this article, I've got some serious explaining to do, because you are sure to have questions. I know that for me, the biggest question I had in all of this was just "why." Why does this place exist?
Buckle in, kids!
