Happy All Saints Day with a the Corpus Sanctus of Saint Victoria, Rome

In commemoration of All Saints Day, we share with you one of our all-time favorite pieces of Catholica related to the cult of the saints. Called a Corpus Sanctus, it is a life-sized effigy of Saint Vittoria (or Victoria ) crafted of wax with human hair and a wreath of flowers. It contains relics related to the saint in the form of her teeth and finger bones. Relics like these are believed to have miraculous powers, usually related to healing.

This piece can be seen today in Rome's Santa Maria della Vittoria, directly across from that Bernini's masterwork The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa.

Photos by our founder Joanna Ebenstein.

The Art and Anatomy of St. Bartholomew: Guest Post by Artist and Anatomist in Residence Emily Evans

Following is a guest post by Artist and Anatomist in Residence Emily Evans about flayed Saint Bartholomew and his curious afterlife in early anatomical illustration. You can find out more about Emily and her work here.

Tradition holds that the apostle Bartholomew was martyred by being flayed alive.

This brutal torture has been depicted in many different ways over the centuries. He is sometimes depicted holding the knife, which symbolizes his martyrdom. The artworks seem to evolve over time from showing him just before the blade strikes, to when flaying occurs and then in later works after the act, where he is draped in, or holding his own skin.

It can be difficult to view these artworks reflecting the act of being skinned alive without squirming thinking of the pain and blood. This is especially so in the early religious paintings of the saint.

Fine artists took the iconic portrayal of St. Bartholomew to use in their work. One of the most famous being Michelangelo who included Bartholomew holding a sheet of his own skin in his left hand and in his right hand is a knife in his famous Last judgment, in the Sistine chapel, The Vatican, Rome. The face on the skin is reputed to be a self-portrait of the artist.

For the anatomists among us, it’s possible to see past the grotesque barbaric act of flaying to reveal the beauty of the musculature beneath.

Medical illustrators took this concept and depicted a flayed anatomical man in a more anatomical context than religious one in the famous 16th century anatomical publications.

In 1543, Andreas Vesalius published De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body). This groundbreaking anatomical tome consisted of engravings which many believe were created by Titian's pupil Jan Stephen van Calcar.

In 1560, Juan Valverde de Amusco published Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano of which all but 4 of its 42 engravings were taken almost directly from Vesalius’s Fabrica. The original illustrations are thought to be drawn by Gaspar Becerra who was a contemporary of Michelangelo, and the copperplate engravings executed by Nicolas Beatrizet.

This movement from the religious to the more artistic and anatomical depictions of Bartholomew continued with the sculpture by Marco D’Agrate who was a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci. It begins to become clear how d’Agrate was interested more in the relationship between art and science than in the one between art and religion.

The American writer Mark Twain certainly did not see this beauty when he saw Marco d’Agrate’s statue of St. Bartholomew in Milan where the saint is shown wearing his skin like a stole. He wrote in 1867:

‘The figure was that of a man without a skin; with every vein, artery, muscle, every fiber and tendon and tissue of the human frame represented in minute detail. It looked natural, because somehow it looked as if it were in pain. A skinned man would be likely to look that way unless his attention was occupied with some other matter.

‘It was a hideous thing, and yet there was a fascination about it somehow. I am very sorry I saw it, because I shall always see it now. I shall dream of it sometimes. I shall dream that it is resting its corded arms on the bed’s head and looking down on me with its dead eyes; I shall dream that it is stretched between the sheets with me and touching me with its exposed muscles and its stringy cold legs. It is hard to forget repulsive things’

In 2002, Gunther Von Hagen’s Bodyworlds came to London, and I saw ‘The Skin Man’ for the first time. Hagen’s plastination process enabled the first and only depiction of Bartholomew in actual human tissues.

Not long after, I saw Hirst’s ‘Exsquisite Pain’ at Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2009. This silver edition of the piece stands Bartholomew on a table covered in tools with a scalpel in one hand to reflect dissection traditions and in the other hand he is holding scissors (said to be inspired by Tim Burton’s film ‘Edward Scissorhands’ of 1990).

You can currently see an edition in gold at Great St Bartholomew church, London for the next few years.

Oddly, St. Bartholomew is also the patron saint of tanners!

Images top to bottom:
Fig.1. Saint Bartholomew, Church of San Laureano, Boyacá, Colombia (year not known)
Fig.2. Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, (1355-1360) Prato, Museo di Palazzo
Fig.3. The Apostle St Bartholomew, (1480) Matteo di Giovanni Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Hungary.
Fig.4. St. Bartholomew displaying his flayed skin in Michelangelo's The Last Judgment. (1536-1541)
Fig.5. Juan Valverde de Amusco's Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano (Rome, 1560)
Fig.6. Statue of St. Bartholomew, with his own skin, by Marco d'Agrate, 1562 (Duomo di Milano)

Fig.7. Statue of St. Bartholomew at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran by Pierre Le Gros the Younger. (1666-1719)
Fig.8. The Skin Man, Gunther von Hagens, Institute for Plastination, Heidelberg, Germany, (1993)
Fig.9. Damien Hirst, Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain, 2007, Silver

The First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant

The First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant Call for Works

Sunday, August 16th

Call for works now ended. You can see full lineup and details here and below. Tickets can be found here.

Thanks, and hope to see you there!

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TALKS:
--E. P. Bell (graduate student, Rutgers University) tracing the roots of this lost ritual and how it was discovered
--Forensic Pathologist Jay Stahl-Herz, MD on the post-mortem challenges presented by bodies found in water
--Ksenya Malina on processional banners used by members of lay confraternity orders in medieval and Renaissance Italy
--AMNH's Erin Chapman with "A Short Illustrated Bestiary of the Gowanus"
--Lady Ayea on the complexities involved in finding the right patron saint for sideshow performers with sword swallowing demonstration
--Urban explorer Will Ellis (Abandoned NYC) about The Batcave, a famous Gowanus abandoned space
--Professor Amy Herzog: TBA

FILMS
--Short films curated by Imagine Science Films at the intersections of art, science and the grotesque
--Jonah Patrick King's film "the Dowsers," which follows a New Age activist cult who worship water in a world where it has been privatized
--Guilherme Marcondes' film Caveirão, an urban fable about ghost in abandoned outskirts of Sao Paulo
--Nicole Antebi's film Riparianism, an animated film which re-imagines a national anthem around the "most" polluted waterways in this country

MUSIC
--Comedian and musician Jessica Delfino with a stirring rendition of "Ghosts of Oysters Past"
--Song by Kim Boekbinder

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Original Call for Works:

We are seeking short pieces--talks, performances, screenings, spectacles--for Gowanus Canal and Saint-themed event taking place on Sunday August 16th to benefit the Morbid Anatomy Museum.

Details follow below. If you are interested, please email your proposal or area of interest to laetitia [at] morbidanatomymuseum.org or joanna [at] morbidanatomymuseum.org.

On Sunday, August 16th, please join us for what we hope will be the first annual pageant honoring Saint Florian, patron saint of flooding and firemen. Gowanus residents are keenly aware that our livelihoods rely on the Gowanus Canal not overflowing its banks. By creating a new ritual to honor and assuage Saint Florian, we can both draw attention to this predicament and develop new rituals to serve as a basis for a new community, all with a sense of whimsy and spectacle.

The pageant will begin with a procession in which we will carry a papier mâché effigy of The Saint along with (we hope) a band from the museum to the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Court on Union Street (about a 10 minute walk). A few words will be said about the ritual, and our new genesis myth for the Gowanus will be articulated.

At the Shuffleboard Court, a fictional graduate student will present a short illustrated lecture tracing the pageant back to a its also fictional 19th century Gowanus roots. Following will be a Gowanus-themed variety show with a number of short presentations and performances, and a party where guests are invited to come in costumes inspired by ideas of the Gowanus.

This is a call for short works for the party. Pieces should run 5-20 minutes of length, and respond (in at least a vague way) the idea of the Gowanus Canal or the procession itself. The monstrous, the mutated, the polluted, the toxic, the abject, aquatic life, industrial throughways, lost causes, mob deaths, gonorrhea, gentrification, ritual, religion, folklore, martyrdom, the spectacular… the list goes on. Works could be talks, performances, screenings, spectacles, projections, and more. The venue has a projector, and we will be given a small stage. We also need help with sets, props and costumes for the procession, so if you are interested in that, let us know!

Oh Santo Niño Doctor! A Guest Post by Entomologist in Residence Daisy Tainton

Following is a guest post by our entomologist in residence Daisy Tainton about one of the most enigmatic vernacular saints we encountered in Mexico: the lavishly eyelashed Santo Niño Doctor!

Oh Santo Niño Doctor!
Right my wrongs and
Forgive my sins.

This is the prayer on the back of a pamphlet about St. Dr. Baby that I found in a church in Zacatecas, Mexico.

As I write this, it has not been long since my statuette of Santo Niño Doctor flung himself from a low bookshelf in my bedroom and shattered. Was he sick of me? Was he full of my sins and wrongs, such that I no longer need him? Or should I not have put him in the bedroom, considering his youth and purity level?

During the Morbid Anatomy field trip to Mexico in 2014 for Day of the Dead, many of us noticed and were captivated by an unusual demi-saint in the pantheon. Occasionally nestled among the more typical Jesus and Virgin statues, there was a child with dark hair and wide eyes, usually seated on a particular chair with three rays of light radiating from his head, a cushion under his feet, and a Doctor's white coat.

Juarez Market in Monterey yielded a lovely molded plastic statuette of Doctor Baby, or SDB, with lovely false eyelashes and a wide, caring expression. A man with a buzz cut and tattoos all the way up to his eyeballs sold him to me, after extricating him with incredulity from a case crowded with likenesses of the Virgin, Jesus Malverde and Santa Muerte(the latter two especially beloved by the criminal and marginalized elements to which this market evidently catered). Lots of neck tattoos and thick accents in these parts. An older woman with a bag of bundled herbs asked if my friend and I were scared to be there, but I believe we made it clear that nothing seemed threatening below the surface. She demanded to know why we liked Santa Muerte, and said this saint is bad. SDB on the other hand was a saint she could get behind. She nodded her approval of my little statue.

Santos of this sort, smacking of idolatry, have a long tradition in Mexican Catholicism. This spritely saint is actually an alternate Jesus, as he began as a statue of the holy infant that was taken by a nun to a hospital and eventually, in mascot-like fashion, dressed as a child-doctor. The baby Jesus, robed in white hospital garments and accessorized with a stethoscope and black doctor's bag, became a separate entity known as SDB. The infirm, their relatives and loved ones pray to him for health and swore that he provided results. Eventually a cult-like following sprang up, with a yearly procession and celebration in his honor.

Images:

1.  Cover of Santo Niño Doctor prayer book
2.  Santo Niño Doctor statuette in Mexico
3. Santo Niño Doctor statuette belonging in author's home
4.  Santo Niño Doctor statuette in Mexico City
5. Santo Niño Doctor earrings made by the author

"The Madonna of the Monster" or The Marian Cult of “La Madre Santisima de la Luz”: Morbid Anatomy 2014 Day of the Day Tour Report by Board Member Amy Slonaker

Following is a guest post by Amy Slonaker--Morbid Anatomy Museum Board Member and two-time attendee of the Morbid Anatomy Day of the Dead Tour in Mexico. I asked Amy--who is also a bit of a dilettante in the area of religious history--to write a brief report about the phenomenon of “La Madre Santisima de la Luz” as witnessed on our Mexican travels. The information contained in her post, Amy points out, came via the world wide web, so she warmly invites any corrections or addenda; you can email them by clicking here.

The Marian Cult of “La Madre Santisima de la Luz”
The 2014 Morbid Anatomy Day of the Dead Tour was another winner that focused on experiencing the celebration of Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico. It also brought us in touch with the Marian cult of “La Madre Santisima de la Luz.” We had seen her image in a church on last year’s tour but didn’t know her name. Imagine our delight to find this prayer card amongst so many others!

In 2013, while visiting the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, we came across a unique shrine to the Virgin Mary in the Templo de la Compania de Jesus (Temple of Jesuits).



We had never seen a representation of the Virgin Mary like this one which included a fantastical monster’s head with a gaping mouth. It wasn’t until the following year, in Mexico City, that we discovered two prayer cards at the religious mall behind The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary of Mexico City featuring the same monster’s head, with the inscription “La Madre SS De La Luz,” “Most Holy Mother of Light.”

Now with a name to guide us, we traced the interesting origin of this image to Palermo, Sicily, in the early years of the 18th century.

The initial account of the creation of this image was written in Palermo in 1733, and then translated and published in Mexico in 1737(1). It goes like this:

A Jesuit priest wished to have a painting of the Virgin Mary to take with him as he preached throughout Sicily. He called upon a woman who was known to have received multiple visitations from the Virgin Mary. The priest asked the woman to consult with Mary as to how Mary would like her image to appear. Sure enough, the Virgin appeared and provided a detailed description of an image that included her saving a soul from the gaping maw of hell.

After a few missteps--including a painter who didn’t know how to follow directions, and a resulting illness/miraculous healing of the woman who received the vision--a second painting was created that successfully included the Virgin’s wish for a hellmouth.

This painting was then brought to the cathedral in Leon, Mexico, in 1732. From here, a healthy cult to the “Most Holy Mother of Light” spread in the region, accounting for the image of "Nuestra Señora de la Luz" we came across in nearby Guanajuato.

But the plot thickens. We found another example of “Santisima de la Luz” on an altar in the Iglesia de San Miguel Archangel in Mexico City, above a wax reliquary for a figure labeled "Santa Rustica." This time, all the aspects of the Virgin’s requested image existed except the Bosch-like, big-mouthed, hell-monster. What happened to the fanciful fiend from which the fellow on the left should be springing?

It turns out that the notion of Mary directly saving souls out of Hell was doctrinally flawed despite being totally in line with what Mary requested during her visitation of the woman in Sicily. Scholars have noted several versions of “La Madre Santisima de la Luz” in which the hellacious beast has been covered over or with its presence omitted in the initial rendering. While some researchers opine this was to rectify any doctrinal fuzziness, another explanation may be that the appearance of the Jesuit-sponsored cult of “La Madre Santisima de la Luz” arrived only shortly before the Jesuits were kicked out of Mexico in 1767 by order of Pope Clement XIV (2). Hence, the Jesuit-promulgated “La Madre Santisima de la Luz” became expunged and replaced with a more generic Virgin.

We look forward to more sightings of images of “La Madre Santisima de la Luz”-- some of which exist in the present-day United States in parts of California and New Mexico. But we can’t help  but hope that the next shrine we see includes a huge monster head.

1. La Devocion de Maria Madre Santissima de la Luz, En Mexico, en la Imprenta Real del superior Gobierno, y del Nuevo Rezado, de Doña Maria de Rivera, en el Empedradillo. Año de 1737.
2. Dominus ac Redemptor is the papal brief promulgated on 21 July 1773 by which Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus.

Bibliography:

• http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/95spring/laluz.htm
• http://www.roman-catholic-saints.com/our-lady-of-light.html
• http://madonnasofmexico.com/

Anatomical Votives and Milagros: A Guest Post by Anatomical Artist Emily Evans

Following is a guest post about anatomical votives by London-based anatomical artist Emily Evans, based on her dissertation on the same subject. You can her excellent artwork--which takes the anatomical body and death as a point of departure--in our gift shop by clicking here. She will also be the Morbid Anatomy Museum artist in residence for July 2014, overseeing a month devoted to art and anatomy, so stay tuned for more on that!

A votive is an offering made usually as an act of worship to a deity or a saint in fulfillment of a vow or when expressing a vow or a wish. The custom of manufacture and use of anatomical votives was prolific in ancient Greece and Rome from 400BC to 400AD. These offerings were made to deities of health and medicine, either in the hope for a cure or in thanks for one. These often life size fragments of the human body were usually modeled in terracotta although materials including metals and stone were used for those that could afford them. They were placed in temples dedicated to the healing gods of the time, most notably, Asklepios.

Most parts of the body were represented by these anatomical votives, each part adopting various theories for their use for healing. Votives have been found depicting practically every part of the body, both internally and externally, although eyes, head, hands, breasts, male genitals and feet were most common.

Despite the rise of Hippocratic medicine, only the wealthy could afford a Greek doctor. Although adhering to entirely differing principles, the two beliefs of healing divinities and Hippocratic medicine co existed within society.

Gradually the saints of the Christian church adopted the powers of the Greek and Roman deities.

In modern day, anatomical votives are small metal religious charms that are pinned or hung at altars and shrines in thankgiving for a miracle received. Modern Catholic and Orthodox European votives are often referred to as ex votos, short for ex voto suscepto meaning “from the vow made” in Latin. In colonial Latin America, they are referred to as Milagros meaning ‘miracles’ in Spanish.

 

They are commonly used in two types of ways; a person may ask a favor from a saint (known as a ‘manda’ in Mexico) and in order to repay the saint after the favor has been granted, they will make a pilgrimage to the shrine of that saint and leave the Milagro there. Alternatively, people might carry a Milagros with them for good luck, especially if it has been blessed by a spiritual healer.

They can range in size from less than ½ inch to several inches and vary in style and material depending on the cultures that produce them. Most are from Peru, Germany, Mexico and Italy ranging in metals from silver, pewter, copper, nickel and other metals.

The meanings of the votives are always up to interpretation. For example a heart could represent a heart condition or affairs of the heart. Equally a leg could mean arthritis or traveling, or a penis could mean fertility.

Internal body parts are usually offered when asking for help with a particular ailment.

Eye Milagros are commonly associated with the Mexican saint Santa Lucia whom people make mandas to her about eye conditions. Eyes can also be attached to the image of the deceased to represent the spirit of that person watching over us.

Images:

1. Breast votive, courtesy of the private collection of Elizabeth Anderson
2. Terracotta votives, Wellcome images
3. Italian silver stomach votive, Tesoros Trading Company
4. Brass vertebrae votive, courtesy of the private collection of Elizabeth Anderson
5. Brass Abdomen votive, courtesy of the private collection of Elizabeth Anderson
6. Variety of anatomical votives, courtesy of the private collection of Elizabeth Anderson
7. Nickel copper anatomical torso votive is also Tesoros Trading Company
8. Eye votive, courtesy of the private collection of Elizabeth Anderson

The Feast Day of San Judas Tadeo ("San Juditas"), October 28th, Mexico City

While in Mexico City a few days ago, my friend Amy and I were lucky enough to witness the festivities surrounding the feast day of San Judas Tadeo (aka "San Juditas"), the patron saint of lost causes and, over the past few years, center of a new cult appealing to the disenfranchised, gang members, criminals, and the most vulnerable members of society. The makeup of St. Judas' devotees is startlingly reminiscent of that of the cult of Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, the popularity of which, as discussed by Andrew Chesnut in his book Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, has grown much in recent years (more here). However, unlike Santa Muerte, who is basically the figure of death personified and sanctified, Saint Judas is a properly canonized saint, and thus this cult falls within the purview of legitimate church worship.

Kurt Hollander, author of the Several Ways to Die in Mexico City (more here), explained to us over tequila one evening in Mexico City that it his belief that the cult of San Judas was a calculated effort by the church to create a kind of within-the-establishment competitor to Santa Muerte. His popularity with certain fringe groups--particularly youth from the city's poorest barrios including chakas, or those of the narco sub culture--was cultivated by American priest Frederick Loos, whose expletive-filled, urban-themed sermons drew large crowds to Mexico City's Hipolito Church. His hope was to reach the tough and vulnerable youth of the barrios by speaking in their language, and by welcome them into the bosom of the church despite their open drug and criminal activities. To find out more about this inspiring man, I highly recommend watching a really amazing short New York Times video which you can see by clicking here.

The worship of Saint Judas Tadeo still takes place at Hipolito Church on the 28th of each month, with the largest celebration taking place on his feast day, October 28th. On October 27th, we witnessed hundreds if not thousands of people streaming into the city all through the day and night, many of them carrying statues of the green-clad, flame-tipped saint; one of the devotees explained to us that the size of the statue was commensurate to the sins needing pardon. There were so many people flooding the streets that cars could not drive on major boulevards, and fireworks went off all night long.

On the day of the festival, the area around the Hipolito Church was filled with statue-toting devotees, vendors of all thing San Judas, impromptu flower-bedecked processions, traditional dancing, mariachi bands, and makeshift shrines. Those lucky enough to make it into the church, we were told, would have their statues blessed, "recharging" their power until the next mass.

All photos above are my own, taken around Mexico City between October 25 and October 30th 2013; Click here to see many more.

Special thanks to Andrew Chesnut for answering my ignorant questions, and for pointing me to this article on Saint Jude by David G. Bromley and Elizabeth Phillips, which was one of the few helpful sources I could find in English, and which I highly recommend if you'd like to go deeper. Andrew has also been tweeting on this phenomenon of late, and his wife Fabiola took some wonderful photos documenting it; click here for more on that. 

The Head of Saint Catherine of Siena : Italy Trip Guest Post by Evan Michelson, TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library

One more guest post by Evan Michelson of "Oddities" and the Morbid Anatomy Library documenting our trip through Italy researching the history of the preservation and display of the human corpse.

Here, her response to our pilgrimage to see the incorruptible head of Saint Catherine of Siena, seen in my photo above:

Recently Joanna and I paid a visit to the remarkable relic of Saint Catherine of Siena, that city's patron saint. Her incorruptible, mummified head lies behind a screen above an altar in Siena's Basilica of San Domenico. Apparently it was smuggled out of Rome in a sack by her followers, who wished to have her worldly remains reside in the city where she was born. Dramatically lit, her head has weathered the centuries well.

Catherine is one of Italy's most important holy women, known for her vivid and voluminous correspondence with Popes, Kings and various heads of state. She was also a remarkably powerful woman in her time, having served as a political ambassador for Florence (a rarity in the 14th century).

She had taken a vow of celibacy at the age of seven and considered herself a true bride of Christ, having entered into a "mystical marriage" with Jesus while still a teenager. She also suffered from what sounds like anorexia or bulimia for much of her life - obsessively fasting and vomiting until she couldn't eat anything at all, and she died quite young. Catherine was both revered and thought to be something of a dangerous fanatic in her lifetime; believe or disbelieve, her life spent nursing plague victims, pursuing political peace, recording ecstatic visions and reading the minds of her fanatical followers makes for a compelling story.

You can read future posts by Evan both on this blog and on her Facebook page, which you will find by clicking here. The photograph is my own. Click on image to see larger version.

Macabre Saints and "Holy Bones," From the Book "Several Ways to Die in Mexico City," Kurt Hollander

 

Just before I left New York, Kurt Hollander--Mexico City-based writer, photographer, filmmaker, editor and translator--sent me a copy of his new book Several Ways to Die in Mexico City: An Autobiography of Death in Mexico City. I was so taken with it that I asked if I could publish an excerpt, along with a series of his photographs of unusually macabre saints and martyrs featured in the book. Thankfully for us, Mr. Hollander kindly obliged; text (slightly abridged) follows and images--all by Kurt Hollander--above:

Holy Bones

After the conquest of Mexico, the Catholic Church, which viewed all indigenous beliefs of life after death as superstition and blasphemy, prohibited Aztec burial ceremonies and quickly monopolized the afterlife, establishing itself as the indispensable intermediary between life and eternity. Just as it altered the way natives were to live, the Spanish Conquest radically transformed the way human beings in Mexico City died and the way in which their bodies were disposed.

A Catholic death in Colonial Mexico consisted of a funeral service presided over by a priest and with the corpse being buried in a grave. Before they were laid into the ground, however, the eyes and mouth of the deceased were shut, the body covered in a white sheet or cloth, placed in a wooden coffin and stretched out in the same way as Christ when taken down from the cross (on one’s back, arms crossed over the chest, one foot on top of the other). The coffin was then carried from the deceased’s home and mourners carrying torches (symbolizing the soul) accompanied the coffin into the church. The corpse and tomb were sprinkled with holy water to keep the deceased’s soul safe from the devil and the priest prayed for their safe passage into heaven.

In Mexico, funerals were often national events of the highest order. Between 1559 and 1819, dozens of major funeral services were held in Mexico City for local archbishops and royalty (as well as funerals in abstensia for the kings, queens and popes in Spain). The funeral pyres that housed the noble corpses, usually erected inside the Metropolitan Cathedral, provided the centerpiece of the elaborate ceremonies. These funeral pyres, also called catafalques and commonly referred to as death machines, were multi-floor temples covered in black cloth and gold leaf and often constructed in the shape of a pyramid. Prominent architects, sculptors, painters, poets and artisans adorned these death machines with images, figures and texts depicting the life and death of the dearly departed (accompanied by skeletons and skulls). More than just mourning a public figure, these funerals served to illustrate the divine status of certain human beings. According to the Catholic Church, death is punishment for one’s sins. Sins, however, affect more than just a person’s death and the final destination of their soul, they also affect their physical remains.

As the state of a corpse revealed the spiritual purity and divinity of the departed, the preservation of the bodily remains of the ruling elite was an important affair. Perfume and anointing processes (a nice word for embalming) ensured that the mortal remains of these personages did not give rise to gossip or speculation. Either as the result of natural gases or from post-mortem procedures, the corpses of religious figures that eventually mummified instead of becoming worm meat stood a much better chance of attaining sainthood, and they also provided living proof that Catholics, if they live a righteous life, can attain immortality in their death.

When these grand funeral processions ended, certain of the personage’s body parts (eyes, heart, liver, intestines, bones) would be donated to different churches or convents where each body part would receive its own elaborate funeral ceremony. Post-mortem organ and skeletal donations were warmly welcomed, although churches and royalty often bought body parts on the black market, as well.

The physical remains of saints have always been considered holy relics, believed to possess curative, even magical powers. No matter how small the fragment, each relic contains all of a saint’s miraculous power. As the existence of holy relics within a church meant an increased influx of worshippers and alms, there was a great demand for such objects. The wealthy in Mexico would often pay large sums of money to obtain body parts or relics of saints, which conferred not only social distinction but also provided their owners with extra spiritual blessings. To meet the demand, priests began to hack up the corpses of Christian saints into increasingly smaller bits.

Relics are given Latin names depending upon their origin: corpois (from the body), ex capillus (hair), ex carne (muscle), ex ossibus (bones), ex praercordis (stomach or intestines), ex pelle (skin) and ex cineribus (ashes). Body parts of saints, including their bones, blood or cremated ashes, are considered first-class relics. Second-class relics are a saint’s clothes or religious accessories, while items that have come in contact with the body or grave of a saint are referred to as representative relics. Many exotic body parts or paraphernalia from saints and religious figures have been collected and are prominently displayed in the Vatican and other reputable houses of worship, including: mother’s milk from the Virgin Mary; Christ’s circumcision knife and foreskin (14 churches claim that theirs is the one, true foreskin); the tail of the donkey that Christ rode into Jerusalem; a sneeze from the Holy Spirit and a sigh from Saint Joseph. The holiest of all relics in Mexico, safeguarded within the Metropolitan Cathedral, is a splinter from the cross Christ was crucified upon.

After the Conquest, a large number of saints’ body parts were sent by boat to Mexico to help convert souls in the New World. The arrival of these relics would often be accompanied by a large procession from the port town of Veracruz all the way to Mexico City. Relics are still very popular, and major collections travel from church to church around the world, bringing in the crowds of faithful who believe that proximity to the bones and other sacred scraps will provide them with miracle cures. (In order to receive blessings or pardon from the saints, the Church insists that worshippers must approach these relics without any morbid curiosity.) Pope John Paul II, who passed away in 2005, had somewhat of a revival in 2011 when a vial of his blood was flown to Mexico City and displayed in churches around the country.

The Chapel of Relics, located within the Metropolitan Cathedral, contains the skeletons, craniums, molars, hands, fingers, feet, intestines, hair and bones of 150 saints, including Maria Magdalena, Saint Gonzaga, Saint Francis, Saint Augustine, as well as a few of the legendary 10,000 Virgins. Within the exquisitely carved wooden floor-to-ceiling altar inside this chapel lie two wax figures of women encased in elaborate glass cubicles. These life-size figures are themselves merely display cases for the bits of bone that are set within their wax bodies, a window having been sewn into their clothes to permit them to be seen. Several bone fragments are also displayed within gold and silver hands and trophies and inside framed tapestries.

Like Catholic saints, Mexican political leaders also have a history of being brutally murdered. Depending on which history you believe, Moctezuma was killed either by an angry mob throwing rocks while he was paraded around on a roof by Cortés, or he was stabbed in the groin by Cuauhtémoc as punishment for allowing himself to become Cortés’ chicken boy. The great warrior Cuauhtémoc became emperor of Mexico-Tenochtitlan after Moctezuma’s successor Cuitlahuac died from small pox, but he was soon captured by the Conquistadores trying to escape the siege of the city in a canoe dressed as a woman, and was tortured and eventually murdered.

Miguel Hidalgo was shot by a firing squad in 1811, as was José Maria Morelos in 1815, both leaders of the Mexican Independence movement. Mexico’s Emperor Agustin de Iturbide and President Vicente Guerrero were both shot and killed by a firing squad in 1831, and Emperor Maximilian and President Miguel Miramón were also both shot and killed by firing squad in 1867. President Manuel Robles Pezuela was assassinated in 1873, President Francisco I. Madero in 1913, Emiliano Zapata in 1919, President Venustiano Carranza in 1920, Pancho Villa in 1923, and President Álvaro Obregón in 1928. Colossio, the man who would have been president in 1994, was shot and killed (the mystery of his murder has never been cleared up although his predecessor, ex-President Carlos Salinas, is generally believed to have been behind the assassination).

Death is not always a leader’s last act. Emperor Maximilian’s corpse was embalmed in order to keep it from rotting on its way back to Mexico City, but during the trip the coffin fell out of the cart and his corpse was thrown into the mud. In Mexico City, his body was embalmed once more and black glass balls were placed in his eye sockets. His corpse was by then so degraded that even his own mother couldn’t recognize him. The doctor who performed the second embalming and others who passed through the room he was kept in stole several items of his blood-stained clothes, the bullets extracted from his body, and even some hair off his head and chin. The bronze cast of Emperor Maximilian’s face, the table upon which the second embalming was performed, and the coffin he had been transported in are currently displayed in three different museums, while the face cast and the deathbed of Benito Juarez, the man who killed Maximilian, are exhibited in the National Palace. The bones of Emperor Iturbide are currently on display in the Metropolitan Cathedral, while Anastasio Bustamante, the man responsible for bringing Iturbide’s bones back to Mexico City, requested his own heart be plucked from his body and placed in an urn to be buried alongside Iturbide...

You can find out more about this fantastic book--and order a copy of your own!--by clicking here. All photos are © Kurt Hollander and are drawn from the book. You can find out more about Kurt by clicking here.

Happy Saint Victoria Day!

Happy Saint Victoria Day, Morbid Anatomy Readers!

More about this lovely saint--whose remains were discussed at length in yesterday's post--from Wikipedia:

Saints Victoria, Anatolia, and Audax (Italian: Sante Vittoria, Anatolia, e Audace) are venerated as martyrs and saints by the Catholic Church...

Their legend... recounts that, in the time of the Emperor Decius, Anatolia and Victoria were sisters whose marriage was arranged to two noble, non-Christian Roman men. They resisted matrimony and their prospective grooms denounced them as Christians. They received permission to imprison the women on their estates and convince them to renounce their faith.

Anatolia's suitor, Titus Aurelius, gave up, and handed her back to the authorities. Victoria’s suitor, Eugenius, was more persistent, but also ended up returning her to the authorities.

Victoria’s legend states that she was stabbed through the heart in 250 AD at Trebula Mutuesca (today Monteleone Sabino). An elaboration on her legend states that her murderer was immediately struck with leprosy, and died six days later....

Due to the translation of their relics, their cult spread across Italy. The body of Saint Victoria was transferred in 827 by Abbot Peter of Farfa to Mount Matenano from the Piceno because of the Moorish invasions. The town of Santa Vittoria in Matenano is named after her. Ratfredus, subsequent Abbot of Farfa, brought the body to Farfa on 20 June 931... Saint Victoria's preserved remains are currently on display at the Santa Maria della Vittoria church in Rome.

Image found here.

"The Macabre and Little Known Sight of Saint Victoria of Rome" : A Mystery Revealed, Thanks to the BBC

Regular readers might remember the enigmatic and gorgeous Saint Victoria (or Saint Vittoria; seen above), a life-sized saint I stumbled upon in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria directly across from Bernini's tourist-drawing Ecstasy of Saint Theresa on a recent trip to Rome. This rose-crowned and slashed-neck lady had caused me no little consternation; Was she waxwork? Effigy? Reliquary? Or some combination of the above? Sadly, churches do not have informational panels explaining such things, and I was left only to wonder as to her history and makeup.

Then, very recently, a few comments popped up on my blog from folks who had seen this mysterious figure discussed at length on the "Divine Gamble" episode of the new BBC TV series "Rome--A History of the Eternal City." I finally was able to locate a copy on You Tube and at about 12:47 minutes in, here is what I learned:

This figure, one of the cities least known but most macabre sights, appears to be a statue. But closer inspection reveals something far more spine chilling. When first you look at this, you think it must be a waxwork. But when you look a little closer, into the slightly open mouth you see, through the open lips of a skeleton. And if you look at the hands on the outside, they appear to be wax. But look inside. You can see not just the skeletal bones of the real hand of the human body but actually the dry skin there too. This is the body of Saint Victoria.

What the host does not mention explicitly is that it is, indeed, the body of the saint herself, but very much "touched up" with wax, human hair, and clothing. You can watch this segment--or the entire episode--by clicking here. You can read the former blog post by clicking here. Thanks so much to posters Cheryl, Josh and Allan for alerting me to this!