 Last week on Mystery Monday, we talked about the fascinating case of La Pascualita in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico. And 87 miles outside of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, within the state of Chihuahua in Mexico, lies the town of Camargo, Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico. Camargo's patron saint is Santa Rosalia, or Saint Rosalia. Now, Saint Rosalia is also the patron saint of Palmero, Sicily, Italy, that also happens to be where she's from. She's actually from or lived in Palmero. Well, today on our Mystery Monday, we're also going to be talking about another Rosalia who is also from Palmero, Sicily, Italy. And like Saint Rosalia, this Rosalia is also, apparently, not a lot. Now, before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. If you want to help support the channel, you can also join our Patreon. And I do have to say a special thank you. We've had a few people joining our Patreon, and I am so appreciative of that. Welcome to Esoterek Atlanta. My name is Bryce, and today we're going to be talking about Rosalia Lombardo, otherwise known as the Sleeping Beauty of Palmero, Sicily. Notice that my set looks a little bit different today, and there's a reason for that. I am actually out of town right now shooting a multi-part series for this channel based on a specific story that I heard growing up. I am out of town because I am interviewing people who were involved in this story. And I do have to apologize because as I sit here filming this Mystery Monday show for you, I am aware that this video will not be released on Monday. In fact, it will probably be released to you on Tuesday, and I hope you will forgive us for that. Today is actually Sunday, and tomorrow morning I will be filming one of my guests for this particular story, and then I will be traveling back to Atlanta Monday afternoon. So it is my hope to get the edited version of Rosalia's story to you no later than Tuesday morning. Again, please forgive us for being a day late, but in 2020, if this is the worst thing that's happened, then I'd say it's a pretty good year. Now on to Rosalia Lombardo's story. In 1918, our world experienced a legit pandemic. This was called the Spanish flu. The Spanish flu was an H1N1 influenza A virus, and it affected about a third of the world's population. Back in those days, people were walking around with face masks on too, except for in those days, it was more legit than what's happening in 2020. Now, even though the Spanish flu affected the whole world, it was called the Spanish flu because reports of the virus started in Spain. In fact, Europe and the Americas were the first countries to really experience a hard hit from the Spanish flu. Now, we all know that the flu or an influenza virus is worse for very, very young people and very, very old people. Normally, people in the middle, like me, might get sick from the flu, but the chances of us taking it us completely out are very, very rare. But this was not the case with the Spanish flu. For the first time, we're watching an influenza that is knocking out young adults and adults in their middle ages, normally the healthiest part of society, of our humanity. We were watching World War I war heroes being taken out by the Spanish flu over the actual war itself. So needless to say, the world was pretty panicked about this pandemic that, again, started in 1918. Now, when someone contracted the Spanish flu, their survival rate typically was within a day to a few hours. The symptoms would include their skin turning blue and their lungs filling with oxygen until they suffocated to death, which is horrific. Now, one of the victims of the Spanish flu was little Rosalía Lombardo. Now, Rosalía Lombardo was born on December 13, 1918, and she died on December 6, 1920. She was just shy of her second birthday. Her father was a man named Mario Lombardo, and he was so distraught, as any parent would be, over the death of his baby girl that he decided to have her body embalmed. Now, if you remember back from our episode on La Pascualita, there was a rumor that her mother was also so upset of her daughter's passing that she had her body embalmed as well. Well, that was just a mystery, just a rumor in the town. This we know for sure. Mario Lombardo had his daughter Rosalía embalmed. Rosalía was then put in the Capuchin catacombs of Sicily. Now, I apologize if I am saying this name wrong. Again, I am not Italian, and I do apologize to my brother-in-law's family if they're watching this because they are Italian. Now, Sicily itself is the island state off of the country of Italy. Sicily is a part of the country of Italy. It's that little island that looks like the boot of Italy is kicking a ball. Well, that ball is Sicily. It's the largest island in the whole Mediterranean Sea. Sicily itself is home to about 5 million people, where Palmero is home to about 1.2 million people. Now, as I said in the intro, the interesting or one of the interesting aspects of this story is that Saint Rosalia was also from Palmero, Italy. The same place that our subject matter, Rosalía Lombardo, is from and is still living in these catacombs. Now, Rosalia, Saint Rosalia is the patron saint of sickness, or the saint that is called upon during times of disease. Now, I'm not Catholic, and so my understanding of saints might be a little bit off because I didn't grow up with saints. We didn't have saints in the Presbyterian Church. So in my little Protestant mind, the way I see it, it's like you got God, you got angels, and then you got like special ghosts, which are the saints, and then like ghost, ghost, and then like humans, if that makes sense. Again, didn't grow up Catholic. But I find it interesting that Rosalia Lombardo died of the Spanish flu when Santa or Saint Rosalia, the patron saint of sickness, is from Palmero, Sicily. And Rosalia Lombardo is still a very famous attraction in the catacombs in Palmero. The catacombs in Palmero were founded in 1599. Now, catacombs themselves are really fascinating to me. I have never been to a catacomb, but I would love to visit catacombs in Europe. Next time I'm there, if we're ever allowed to travel to Europe again, I would absolutely love to see them. And something I found interesting too, you see, in the Protestant church, yes, people are buried. Most of my relatives who have passed away are buried in graves. But I have two relatives, an aunt and an uncle, who were cremated. In Protestant faiths of Christianity, from my experience, there's not really an issue with cremation or burial. Well, what I've recently learned, thanks to a subscriber, in studying whether JFK Junior is still alive or not, is that Catholics don't believe in cremation. Hence why people think JFK Junior might still be alive, because apparently the body of JFK Junior, his wife and his wife's sister, were cremated. And that's not something a devout Catholic would ever do. You could argue that their bodies were so dismantled from the plain wreckage that it was better to cremate. However, you could also counter that by saying, well, then just have a closed casket. In fact, all of my family members who've been buried had closed caskets. So as we get back to the story of these catacombs, I want everybody to keep that in mind that devout Catholics don't typically cremate their loved ones. Now, obviously, when you're burying bodies or placing bodies in catacombs, there's only so much space available. And, spoiler alert, we're all going to die one day. So that's a lot of needed space for a lot of bodies. Now, originally, the catacombs in Palmera were connected to the Capuchin Monastery. And so at first it was just the friars and the priests that were placed in these catacombs. But then over time, burying your loved ones within these catacombs became a status symbol. So all of a sudden, it wasn't just the friars and the priests that were being placed within these catacombs, but actual people as well, including Rosalia Lombardo when she died on December 6th in 1920. Now, with the status symbol of these catacombs, when your family was able to pay a monthly rent, so to speak, a mortgage on your body's resting place of eternity, then your body would have been put out on display. So you could come in and, like, see Nana's body just standing there or the priest that baptized you, like, in death, just gonna hang it out like a mannequin, like Bala Pasqualita just standing there. But when all of a sudden your family either died off themselves or moved away or fell upon hard times and couldn't pay your rent, so to speak, your body would be removed from display and thrown up on the shelf. Gotta love, organize religion, man, like, this is a business, this is a business. If you need prime real estate in death, you better be really sweet to your grandchildren or nieces and nephews, because they're the people that are gonna be responsible for paying your body's mortgage once you're dead. Now, Rosalia Lombardo was one of the last bodies to be placed in the catacomb, and it is of my opinion that her family was probably pretty wealthy because, A, her father was able to afford embalming and, B, they were obviously able to pay for Rosalia to have a nice, eternal resting spot in these catacombs. So the embalmer that her father hired was a man named Alfredo Salafia. Again, I hope I'm saying that right. Well, apparently Alfredo was a bit of a maverick when it came to embalming bodies, and he embalmed Rosalia's body so well that even her organs appeared to be intact in MRIs. Now, the body today is in a small, tomb-like bed or crib at the end of the tour of the catacombs in its own small little chapel. Now, again, because Alfredo did such a good job of embalming Rosalia, it does appear that she is still alive. It looks like she is legitimately a two-year-old taking a nap, complete with a ribbon in her hair. Now, what's even more concerning to tourists who go to visit Rosalia Lombardo is that her eyes appear to blink. Her eyelids open and shut. In fact, you can find video of this phenomenon on YouTube and I will attach a video of that below. Now, the body itself is within its crib, within a glass coffin structure. This get-glass coffin structure is filled with nitrogen gas to help preserve her body so it won't start to decay. However, many people believe that there is something about Rosalia Lombardo's body that isn't totally dead. Again, her eyes open and shut, almost as if she's looking around the room. In fact, many people say that her eyes open so wide that you can see the blue irises of her little eyes. Now, the director of the catacombs will tell you that there is a logical explanation for this, that it is just merely an optical illusion with the light. That's a trick of light. That's why. That's why it appears that her eyes open and shut. It's just a trick of light. But I don't know if I actually believe that. In our last video, I said that I believe La Pascualita is just a mannequin. Unfortunately, just a mannequin. But with Rosalia Lombardo, I wonder if there's something more to the story. Did her soul get stuck in her body? What is going on with this little girl? Or does she even know she's dead? All right. I would love to hear your opinions. Please comment below. Again, thank you so much to Josh McKay for doing our music and Todd Roderick for helping me produce and edit for this channel. Todd Roderick's Band of Flying Mystics is now up on YouTube. They are going to be doing live performances from YouTube. So if you like acoustical and jammy type of ambient music, then go ahead and subscribe to their channel as well. All right, guys. Again, I hope this video is coming at you on Tuesday morning. Don't forget that we are going to be discussing the Palladians later today on David Zublik's channel. So hop on over there tonight to check that out. And I hope you guys have had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and have a wonderful day today. And I will talk to you soon. Bye.