JEWELED REMAINS

Dear God of the Living and the Dead,

Let us pray for the dead, apparently Christian martyrs, whose remains
found in Roman catacombs, were decorated
with gems and precious metals by German nuns in the 1600's.

Let us pray also for those dedicated women
who did this gruesome, painstaking labor,
and for the patrons who supported the work,
which seems strangely macabre and weird to us today, and for the souls whose skeletons
lie here bejeweled in peace.

Bless, Lord, this gilded hand, which,
we can assume, was folded often in prayer
to you in ancient chapels long ago.

Please enfold in Your forgiving mercy,
all those who created these strange relics, and may the souls which once vivified
these moldering, gilded, gaudy skeletons, and those who venerated them over
the centuries, now rest in peace.

Their vacant eyes beckon us to paradise.

Amen

NOTE

These dead, known as "the catacomb saints," were presumed to be early Christian martyrs, put to death by the Romans.

The remains were sent from Italy to Catholic churches and religious houses in German-speaking Europe, to replace revered relics which had been destroyed in the holy fury
of the Protestant Reformation.

There was, however, an illicit trade in fake "relics" sold to naive churchmen and wealthy noble families over the ages, so the true provenance of the skeletons remains virtually impossible to discover. However, the sincere ardor, talent and energetic dedication
of the gold-working nuns, who decorated
and venerated the moldering bones,
is self-evident.

The skeletons were carefully reassembled
and richly adorned in jewels and precious costumes by teams of religious in the 1600's. Intended as flamboyant devotional items,
they also turned out to be the finest works of art ever created in human bone.

Once part of the spiritual life of many people, time passed, and ardor for these sumptuously decorated skeletons wavered.

During the Enlightenment they they were cast out as remnants of a superstitious
and embarrassing Roman Catholic past.

The images of this bizarre form of Baroque-era northern European art were made
by Dr. Paul Koudounaris, a Los Angeles-based art historian, the author of Heavenly Bodies wherein the photographs first appeared.

Image Ownership Credits
Next Prayer
Prayer Index
Website Home

(c) 2013 Donn B. Murphy
Contact - Comment - Question? - dbm@nowstar.net