The Confraternidad de los Viandantes (Brotherhood of Wayfarers) was formed on June 30, 1633, and the agreement with the Augustinian friars for the use of a private chapel in St. Augustine’s Church dates from that time. In the church, the crypt spreads below the chapel of the present Gremio dei Viandanti, toward the center of the nave of the church, for an extension that exceeds the simple length of the chapel itself. The underground structure is carved almost entirely out of an excavation in the limestone rock, topped at the top by a barrel vault made of simple cantons of local limestone. In the sides and in some structural support parts of the vault, there is extensive use of clay with a binding function. The crypt is accessed by a masonry staircase and a few steps that allow descent to the interior, where near the entrance is a powerful rubble fill, affected by a large, roughly circular pit and a substantial pile of debris from the same recent excavation. The second and innermost half of the room is affected by a substantial accumulation of human bones, which appears to be the result of a seemingly homogeneous operation of sheltering large quantities of bones from the removal of previous burials. The long bones and skulls are in good preservation condition, but the high humidity in the environment may have damaged and compromised the preservation of the less durable bones.
