The “Sleeping Beauty” of the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo.

Rosalia Lombardo was a two-year-old Sicilian girl who died of pneumonia in 1920. She is considered one of the world’s best-preserved bodies, and has resided in a glass fronted coffin in the crypt since her death. For many years, the formula that preserved her so magnificently was considered a mystery, but it has recently been discovered that her preparator—Sicilian taxidermist and embalmer Alfredo Salafia—injected her with a mixture of formalin, zinc salts, alcohol, salicylic acid, and glycerin. Apparently, its the zinc salts that kept her so well preserved, in effect petrifying her body.