Incorruptibility is primarily an Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic belief...a belief that involves some kind of divine intervention taking place and allowing certain human bodies (especially those of saints) to avoid the normal process of decomposition after death...this is interpreted by the church as a sign of their holiness and purity...it is said that these types of bodies that undergo little or no decomposition, or delayed decomposition, are sometimes referred to as being incorrupt or incorruptible...it is also said that incorruptibility is thought to occur even in the presence of factors which will normally hasten decomposition...in fact, in some cases, the body has a floral fragrance...or so it is said...during some marble excavations that were taking place on the Appian Way in the spring of 1485, the story goes that some workers found three marble coffins...curious fellows that they were, they decided to look inside the coffins...in one that was found twelve feet underground, was the corpse of a young woman...it was said to have looked as if it had been buried that day, despite being about 1500 years old...the corpse attracted over 20,000 onlookers in the first few days of its viewing... many believed it to be of Tullia, daughter of Cicero, whose epitaph indeed was on one of the tombs...in Roman Catholicism, if a body is judged as incorruptible after death, this is generally seen as a sign that the individual is a saint...although not all saints have had an incorruptible body...of course we know that Mozart was a great composer in life but his body did not possess incorruptibility...in death he became a great decomposer.
