St. Valerius in
Weyarn, Germany
As the Vatican prepares to display bones it believes to be those of St
Peter, we explore an amazing series of jewelled saints' remains from
southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The skeletons were found in
1578 when some of the catacombs of Rome were opened up, containing the
remains of the city's early Christian community. Over the next couple of
hundred years, some of the skeletons, identified as saints' remains,
were sent north across the Alps to replace relics destroyed in the
Protestant Reformation. To mark their newfound status, they were
festooned with an extraordinary assortment of jewels, cloth of gold and
other precious fabrics, and are still objects of veneration.
