Editor l Zhang Fei
introduction
In Europe, some artists profess to be fascinated by death, and have devoted their careers to investigating and documenting phenomena such as church ossuary, charcoal houses, and bone-decorated shrines.
An artist, while on a research trip, arrived at a Roman village, and a man approached him and asked: "Are you interested in seeing an old dilapidated church in the forest, where there is a skeleton, covered with jewels, and a glass of blood in its left hand, as if to toast you?"
So, he followed the man to a church and discovered a shocking scene.
The Adventures of the Artist
It stood upright, dressed in robes fit for the king, and pulled out a glass vial, which was said to contain the skeleton's own blood. He was struck by the dark beauty of this silent figure, but eventually wrote it as "some kind of one-time weirdness, some kind of local curiosity."
Some time later, in another German church he visited, he found two resplendent skeletons. "That's when I realized there was something broader and more spectacular going on," he said.
The artist could not erase the twinkling eyes and gold-decorated smiles of these figures from his mind. He began to study the mysterious remains, and he learned that the skeletons were "catacombs saints", once revered holy relics, regarded by Catholics in the 16th and 17th centuries as local protectors and the embodiment of afterlife glory.
Some of them are still hidden in certain churches, while others have been washed away by time and disappeared forever.
The ornate bones of Roman martyrs
In Via Salaria in Rome, a road leads to the catacombs. As it turned out, the basement was filled with countless skeletal remains, presumed to date back to the first three centuries after the rise of Christianity, when thousands of people were persecuted for practicing this religion, which was still illegal.
Countless souls – mostly Christians, but also some pagans and Jews – found their final resting place in the sprawling Roman catacombs.
However, for hundreds of skeletons, this resting place is by no means final. The Catholic Church soon learned of the discovery and considered it a godsend, as many of the skeletons must have belonged to early Christian martyrs.
In Northern Europe, and especially in Germany, where anti-Catholic sentiment is at its highest, the Catholic Church has suffered from predators and vandals during the Protestant revolutions of the past few decades. Most of the relics in these churches have been lost or destroyed. However, the newly discovered relics can replenish the shelves and restore the morale of those parishes that have been ransacked.
The Eucharist became a highly sought-after treasure. Every Catholic Church, no matter how small, wants at least one, or even ten. These skeletons allow the church to make a "grand statement". Wealthy families sought them out for their private churches, and guilds and fraternities sometimes pooled their resources to adopt a martyr who, for example, would become a patron of a clothmaker.
For a small church, the most effective means of obtaining a coveted set of remains is to establish a personal connection with someone in Rome, especially one of the Papal Guard. Bribery also helps. Once the order was confirmed by the Church, messengers (usually monks who specialized in transporting relics) transported the skeleton from Rome to the appropriate northern outpost.
The Vatican has sent thousands of relics, but it is difficult to determine how many of them are fully articulated bones rather than individual sinewbones, skulls, or ribs. The artist estimates that in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where most of the famous remains ended, the church sent at least 2 complete skeletons.
For the Vatican, the process of determining which of the thousands of skeletons belonged to the martyrs was a murky one. If they find a body with "M." engraved next to it. , they would have taken it as a synonym for "martyr" and ignored the fact that the initials could also stand for "Marcus", one of the most popular names in ancient Rome.
If any vials of dehydrated sediment appeared with the bones, they thought it must have been the blood of a martyr, not a perfume, which the Romans often left on their graves in the same way that we leave flowers today.
The church also believed that the bones of the martyrs would emit a golden glow and a faint sweet smell, and that the psychic team would pass through the physical tunnel and fall into a trance, pointing out the skeletons from which they perceived a distinct aura. After determining that a skeleton was sacred, the Vatican then decided who was who and awarded the title of martyr.
While there are skeptics within the Vatican, those who have embraced these relics have never wavered in their faith.
How ornate skeletons are made
The skeleton of each martyr represents the splendor that awaits believers in the afterlife. Before it can be presented to the congregation, it must be dressed in garments commensurate with its status. Skilled nuns, or occasionally monks, prepare skeletons for public appearances. This can take up to three years, depending on the size of the work team.
Each monastery develops its own gift, wrapping bones in gold, precious stones, and fine fabrics. The women and men who adorn the skeletons are mostly anonymous. But as artists studied more and more corpses, they began to recognize the artefacts of a particular monastery or individual.
Nuns are often known for their achievements in dressmaking. They spun fine mesh gauze that was used to delicately wrap each bone. This prevents dust from being deposited on fragile materials and creates a medium for attaching ornaments.
Local aristocrats often donated personal clothing, which the nuns would graciously put over the corpses and then cut out peepholes so that people could see the bones underneath. Similarly, jewelry and gold are often donated or paid for by private businesses. To add a personal touch, some sisters wear their own rings on the skeleton's fingers.
However, one thing that the nuns did lack was formal anatomical training. Artists often found that the bones were not properly attached, or noticed that the hands or feet of the skeleton were severely missing.
Some of the skeletons are fitted with full wax faces, shaped like open smiles or wise gazes. "Ironically, this was done to make them look less creepy, more vivid and appealing," the artist said. "But it has had the opposite effect today. Now, those with faces seem to be the creepiest.
They are also very beautiful. In their splendor and grandeur, the skeletons may be considered Baroque, but the background of their creator paints a more complex picture, placing the skeleton in a distinct artistic subcategory, the artist said.
Nuns and monks, he said, "are incredible artisans, but they are not trained in the workshops of artisans, and they do not have a formal dialogue with others in other parts of Europe who are doing similar things."
"From the point of view of me, a person who studies art history, the question of who the Catacombs saints are becomes secondary to the achievement of creating them," he continued. "It's something I want to celebrate. ”
When a sacred skeleton is finally introduced into the church, it marks a moment of community rejoicing. These decorated corpses drive townsfolk crazy, and they tend to be very popular because they are a very tangible and very attractive bridge to the supernatural.
The baptismal record reveals how seductive the skeleton was. Inevitably, after the arrival of the Eucharist, the first born child will be baptized in its name - for example, the boy is called Valentine, and the girl is called Valentina. In extreme cases, half of the children born that year will have a skull name.
The community believes that the skeletons of these martyrs protect them from harm and attribute it to any seemingly miraculous or positive events that occur after installation. The Church kept the "Book of Miracles" as a ledger for the good deeds of the martyrs.
For example, a diary record shows a fire breaking out in a Roman town. Just as the flames approached the market, the economic center of the town, a gust of wind came and blew them back.
The people of the town are full of adoration for Felix. Even today, the body of St. Felix is littered with about 100 former voters – small paintings depicting and expressing gratitude for miracles, such as healing the sick.
epilogue
However, as the world modernized, the gilding of celestial bodies began to fade for those in power. The artist writes that the corpses are seen as "a reflection of our barbaric times" and appeal only to "vulgar people: feudal lords and their imbecile wives, and their barbaric vassals."
At the end of the 18th century, Emperor Joseph II of Austria was determined to eradicate superstition from his territory. He issued a decree that all artifacts that did not have a clear provenance should be thrown away. Skeletons certainly lack this. They were stripped of their identity, removed from their posts, locked in chests or cellars, or plundered of their jewelry.
For the local community, this is devastating. For more than a century, these saints have been indoctrinated into people's lives, and those humble worshippers have yet to receive a memorandum from the Enlightenment.
Pilgrimage to see the skeleton was suddenly outlawed. The locals often wept and followed the skeleton of these martyrs as it was taken from a revered position by the nobility and mutilated. But the repression did not make people's faith disappear, and when something big happened, the faith of Catholics in these skeletons did not wane, and people still believed in these skeletons.