Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Museum of the Souls in Purgatory)

The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Museum of the Souls in Purgatory) is located on the river bank of Tiber, in Rome, Italy. It is the only Gothic church in Rome.

The temple was established in 1894 by the French priest, Victor Jouet. The construction of the church lasted longer than expected because of the limited financial resources. After the completion the temple burnt down. Afterwards, the priest Vistor claimed he had seen an image of a sad human face on the blackened wall. As he deduced, it must have been a soul doomed to Purgatory which wanted to make contact with the living. In consequence, he decided to establish the Museum of the Souls in Purgatory which made the church so renowned.

The Museum of the Souls in Purgatory is located just by the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The museum's collections contain: a prayer book where one can find an image of a burnt hand of a dead on one page, a pillowslip with fire marks which belonged to a nun who asked her sister to pray for her, a fragment of a tabletop with a burnt mark of a hand of a purgatorial soul. Every single story relating to each collection piece is precisely documented.

A book written by Gerard van den Aardweg about the museum is entitled "Athirst souls".