Sunday, December 17, 2023

Saint Victoria's incorruptible body






Incorruptible bodies are those believed to not succumb to the normal process of decomposition by way of divine intervention. But Saint Victoria’s body needed a little help. Her incomplete corpse was supplemented with wax and hair and clothes from someone else entirely, adorned with a crown of roses.

Saint Victoria, the patron of Anticoli, Italy, was an early christian martyr. She is one of many examples of faithful Catholic women who were killed after spurning a powerful pagan suitor. You can see her skeleton through some parts of the wax facade, such as her teeth and parts of her hand.  

The martyr's wax-enhanced skeletal remains lie preserved in a glass case in the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. 



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