Queen of Heaven Mausoleum


Queen of Heaven Mausoleum, the world's largest Catholic mausoleum, has one of the largest collections of religious art in the world.

Queen of Heaven Mausoleum, adjacent to the cemetery, has 30,000 crypts and 64 columbarium niches. There is also a garden crypt complex, with 25,729 crypts and 720 columbarium niches and as of 2009 about 75 percent filled.

The mausoleum contains the remains of Chicago gangsters Sam "Teets" Battaglia, Tony "Big Tuna" Accardo and Paul "The Waiter" Ricca.

The cemetery has a variety of both famous and infamous alike interred and represented in memoriam, including the innocent young souls victimized by the fire that ravaged the West Side: "Our Lady Of The Angels" school on a cold December morning in 1958, claiming the lives of 92 children and 3 Nuns most of which perished by way of smoke inhalation while some fell to their death jumping from upper floor classroom windows to escape the raging inferno that quickly engulfed the antiquated building



Present is a huge gallery of stained glass, statuary and carved wood and statuary in marble, bronze and mosaic. The art in the west wing of the main building was carried out mostly by DaPrato Studios of Chicago, with an international array of artists/architectural designers,(including a few from the Chicago area) artists such as [1]: Italo Botti, Angelo Gherardi (Italy/USA), Urano Bottari (Italy USA), Laurence Campbell (Ireland), Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (Oak Park Illinois), and a number of others.

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