What is certain is that the discovery of Saint Peter’s ancient tomb was located on the Vatican hill where he had suffered martyrdom and where now stands the Basilica that takes after his name. But the fate of his bones has long been wrapped in mystery. Although archaeologist Margherita Guarducci was certain of having found them, and that Paul VI on June 26, 1968 announced that “... even the relics of St. Peter have been identified so that we can feel convincing” the enigma of the relics cannot be called over. A new chapter begins: recently restoration works in the church of Santa Maria in Cappella, in Trastevere, have brought to light, inside a medieval altar, two olle (Roman pots) containing the (alleged) relics of some early popes, including St. Peter. Some Bone-fragments that therefore add up to those preserved in the Vatican underground.
The story is told by Barbara Carfagna and will be broadcasted by the TV program “Codice” on Rai Uno tomorrow at 11.30. pm. The church of Santa Maria in Cappella, owned by the Doria Pamphilj family, was consecrated on March 25, 1090, by two bishops, Ubaldo of the diocese of Sabina and John of the Tuscolo. The archaeologist Cristiano Mengarelli studied an inscription contemporary to the stone, which attests that some important relics were collected inside. The list begins with a fragment of the Virgin Lady’s robe (however this was not found inside the altar), and continues citing the relics of Saint Peter and of Popes Cornelius, Callisto and Felice, originally buried in different cemeteries, and finally relics belonging to the martyrs Ippolito, Anastasio, Melix and Marmen. “This complex of relics appears, with different combinations, in other consecrations documented for this period for other churches,” the archaeologist notes.
Although the cavity-reliquary made just below the floor of the marble altar has not always been sealed – there is evidence of only two investigations dating back to the seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries – the knowledge of its existence had been long lost. The temple, which has been closed since 1982 for structural problems, has been subject of renovation works in recent years. According to a witness of the find Massimiliano Floridi, husband of Princess Gesine Pogson Doria Pamphilj, the relics were discovered by a worker who was moving the marble sheet from the altar.
The leaded reliquary box contained two small pots made of lead-glazed purified ceramic, with matching lead caps topped by the graffiti-engraved names of the saints, which are then repeated, with a different handwriting, in lead-alloy plaques placed inside the two jars. According to archaeologist Mengarelli, these are artifacts dating back to the time when the church was consecrated. The Relics, in new containers, were handed over to the Vicariate of Rome, which has sealed them anew.
The church of Santa Maria in Cappella is linked to Urban II, Eudes de Châtillon (legitimate Pope from 1088 to 1099), quoted in the foundation stone, who lived on the Tiberina Island. At that time, there was also Antipope Clement III (1080-1100), elected by Emperor Henry IV, who occupied the Lateran Palace. There is the hypothesis that the church of Trastevere could have been used as a chapel by the legitimate Pontiff when he was in the city.
Still nothing can be said about the origin of the relics or their authenticity, while those worshiped in St. Peter, in the place where the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles has been identified with certainty, are compatible with the bodily remains of a man who lived in the first century AD. New examinations and maybe a comparison between the different relics attributed to Peter within the city of Rome are scheduled, as the mystery continues.
* This article was published in today’s edition of La Stampa
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