Italy's 'miracle' relics

In October 2004, after participating in the Fifth World Skeptics Congress in Abano Terme, Italy--near Padua, where Galileo taught and discovered Jupiter's moons (Frazier 2005)--I remained in the beautiful country for some investigative work. Here are some of my findings.

Relics of the Saints

I was able to visit a number of churches containing alleged relics--objects associated with a saint or martyr. These may be all or part of the holy person's body (in Catholicism, a first-class relic) or some item associated with him or her (such as an article of clothing, a second-class relic). Venerated since the first century A.D., relics were thought to be imbued with special qualities or powers--such as healing--that could be tapped by one touching or even viewing them (Pick 1979, 101).

So prevalent had relic veneration become in St. Augustine's time (about A.D. 400) that he deplored "hypocrites in the garb of monks" for hawking the bones of martyrs, adding with due skepticism, "if indeed of martyrs" (qtd. in "Relics" 1973). About 403, Vigilantius of Talouse condemned the veneration of relics as being nothing more than a form of idolatry, but St. Jerome defended the cult of relics--on the basis of miracles that God reputedly worked through them ("Relics" 1967).

Here and there were such relics as the fingers of St. Paul, St. Andrew, and the doubting Thomas. There were multiple heads of John the Baptist. Especially prolific were relics associated with Jesus, whose foreskin was enshrined at no fewer than six churches. There were also his swaddling clothes, hay from the manger, and vials of his mother's breast milk. A tear that he shed at Lazarus's tomb was also preserved, along with countless relics of his crucifixion and burial (Nickell 1993, 75-76).

Italy is especially rich with relics. With the generous assistance of my Italian friends, who relayed me from city to city by train across the northern part of the country, I witnessed reputed holy relics in Vienna, Milan, and Turin (before later flying to Naples).

In Venice, beneath the high altar of the Basilica di San Marco (St. Mark's Basilica), supposedly lies the body of the author of the gospel of Mark, martyred in Alexandria and later brought to the city by Venetian merchants. Some Italian colleagues and I visited the cavernous Byzantine basilica on October 11, first paying to see a collection of relics that included an alleged piece of the stone column of Jesus' flagellation, then paying again to pass by St. Mark's reputed remains.

Unfortunately, since the remains did not come to Venice until A.D. 829 (whereupon construction of the basilica was immediately begun to enshrine them), there is a serious question as to their provenance (or historical record). Even accepting the substance of the story about their acquisition, one source notes, "the identity of the piously stolen body depends on the solidarity of the Alexandrine tradition" (Coulson 1958, 302). Moreover, according to a National Geographic Society travel guide (Jepson 2001, 143), "many claim the saint's relics were destroyed in a fire in 976."

In Milan, I visited the Basilica of St. Eustorgio, my guide being noted writer (and fellow SI columnist) Massimo Polidoro. In a dark recess of the church we read the inscription, "SEPVLCRVM TRIVM MAGORVM" (Sepulcher of the Three Magi). A carved stone slab nearby was accompanied by a sign that informed, "According to tradition this stone slab with the comet was on top of the Magi's tomb and was brought to Italy along with their relics." Actually the story is a bit more complicated.

Legendarily, the relics were discovered by St. Helena (248-328), mother of Constantine the Great. They were supposedly transferred to Milan by St. Eustorgio (d. 518) who carried them by ox cart. Then after Milan fell to Frederick Barbarossa in 1162, they were transported to Cologne two years later (Cruz 1984, 154; Lowenthal 1998).

It appears, however, according to an article by David Lowenthal titled "Fabricating Heritage" (1998), that the relics were never in Milan. Instead it seems that the whole tale was made up by the Cologne archbishop, Reinald of Cologne. In any event, in 1909, some fragments of the alleged Magi bones were "returned" to Milan and enshrined in the church named for their legendary transporter, the sixth-century bishop of Milan.

In Turin, I visited important "relic" sites. One, the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, houses the notorious Shroud of Turin, the supposed burial cloth of Christ that is actually a tempera-painted forgery, radiocarbon dated to the time of a confessed fourteenth-century artist. With a small group of Turin skeptics, I also studied the latest shroud developments at the Museo della Sindone (Holy Shroud Museum) along with many items associated with the cloth, including the mammoth camera with which it was first photographed in 1898. (For more on the Shroud see Nickell 1998; McCrone 1996).