This should be the conclusion of my three-parter on the Tomb of St. Peter at St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican, in which I hope to discuss the discovery of St. Peter’s relics and the issue of their authenticity. Also, a bibliography! Previously, “The Tomb of St. Peter,” “The Grave of St. Peter.“

The bones found beneath the Red Wall (briefly replaced there for the photograph). (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

The bones the Vatican archaeologists had discovered in 1942, in the niche at the foundation of the Red Wall, to one side of St. Peter’s grave, remained safely locked in lead-lined chests in the private chambers of the pope for over a decade. Only a cursory examination had been given to them by the pope’s private physician, who declared that they were the bones of a man in his seventies — the age Peter was expected to have been at his martyrdom. The pope had made only a brief, uncertain announcement concerning the bones in 1950. The hungry press, a curious academia, and the anxious Church widely wondered about their authenticity, and the frustration only built at the Vatican’s reticence and characteristic slowness.

Finally, in 1956, at the request of Pope Pius XII, Venerando Correnti, a leading anthropologist and professor at Palermo University, examined the Red Wall bones. Correnti’s meticulous examination and testing took over four years. In the end, his findings were disappointing: these were almost certainly not the bones of Peter. The pile contained the bones of as many as four individuals: two men in their fifties, a man in his forties, and an elderly woman in her seventies, as well as an assortment of animal bones. The animal bones were not a great surprise: the ancient necropolis was known to have been near the emperor Nero’s circus and stables, and discarded animal carcasses may have left their bones strewn all throughout the area.

The bones that had been the objects of hope for over a decade — the bones found in, or at least to the side of, St. Peter’s grave — were not the saint’s relics at all. But that is not the end of the story. Another set of bones had been discovered at the site, that Correnti now prepared to examine.

The Graffiti Wall, on the north side of the Tropaion, showing the repository. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Unknown to the archaeologists at the time, there had been a serious blunder early in the excavation. Early in 1942, when the team had first discovered the Graffiti Wall at the north side of the Tropaion, with its curious marble receptacle slightly exposed, they had initially chosen not to disturb it, wishing to fully photograph and document the valuable graffiti before risking damage to the plaster by reaching into the hole. When they finally did examine it, they found nothing inside but a medieval coin, some bone fragments, and other debris.

But by the time they got to it, the receptacle had already been tampered with. Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, the administrator of St. Peter’s Basilica and nominal head of the investigation, had a habit of inspecting the excavations alone at night after the archaeologists had left. Kaas was not an archaeologist himself, and had little appreciation for proper archaeological procedure. Troubled by possible disrespect to the bones of saints, as unknown graves and bones were uncovered in the course of the investigation and set aside, Kaas would remove these bones and place them respectfully in boxes.

In this diagram of the Niche of the Pallia and the surrounding tomb, the Graffiti Wall is labeled Wall g. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Late one night within a couple of days of the Graffiti Wall being exposed, Kaas examined it and its receptacle. He brought with him Giovanni Segoni, one of the foreman of the Sampietrini, the skilled workmen charged with the care of St. Peter’s Basilica, who had been assisting in the excavations. At Kaas’s direction, Segoni widened the hole in the plaster and removed the contents of the repository: a considerable pile of human bones with some shreds of reddish cloth. Segoni placed these in a wooden box, sealed it, and labeled it. The box would remain in a storeroom throughout the remainder of the excavation, unknown to any of the archaeologists.

In 1952, when Dr. Margherita Guarducci was examining the graffiti of the Graffiti Wall, she encountered Segoni by chance. She inquired about the contents of the receptacle and learned that he had emptied it himself, and he led her to the box. Not realizing that the archaeologists were unaware of Kaas’s actions, Guarducci was surprised by the size and extent of the bones, and even more so by what she believed was a failure on the part of the archaeologists to document them and consider their importance. It was not until more than a decade later, when Guarducci discussed the matter with Kirschbaum and the other archaeologists, that all realized what had happened.

But Guarducci placed the neglected bones in the queue for Correnti to examine. Preoccupied for so long with the disarrayed pile of Red Wall bones, Correnti did not get to the Graffiti Wall bones until 1962. Fully expecting this to be another collection of mixed bones, he was surprised by his unexpected findings: they were the remains of one elderly man, between sixty and seventy years old, of sturdy build. There were two other puzzling aspects: the bones were encrusted with soil in their crevices and hollows, as if buried and exhumed; and a number of the larger bones appeared to have been stained with a reddish or purplish dye, the color of the shreds of fabric discovered in the box. Sometime after the decay of the flesh, the bones had been dug up from a grave and wrapped in a purplish cloth.

The inside of the Graffiti Wall repository. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

It was Guarducci who, learning of Correnti’s findings, developed the theory that the Graffiti Wall bones might be the bones of St. Peter himself. But why would Peter’s bones be in the marble repository of the Graffiti Wall, and not in the central grave? What was the purpose of the repository? It might have been, Guarducci reasoned, a hiding place, a container for the bones’ safekeeping and protection from Roman persecutors and vandals. At the time of the Graffiti Wall’s construction in the mid-third century, Christianity was under the most aggressive persecution it had suffered in decades, under the emperors Decius and Valerian. Might the Church have felt the bones were threatened?

A closer examination of the scraps of cloth discovered with the bones brought a stunning revelation: it was a cloth dyed what appeared to be purple, and interwoven with pure gold thread of the finest craftsmanship. The dye used, upon chemical testing, proved to be the authentic Roman purpling agent, reserved for royalty.

A sampling of the bones believed to be those of St. Peter. These are the carpals and metacarpals of the left hand. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

And the dirt encrusted on the bones — could it reveal where the bones had been before? Testing the soil composition of the central grave, the outer courtyard, and the area around the Graffiti Wall, the soil on the bones was a perfect match for the soil in the central grave, quite distinct from the soil in the other locations. These bones appeared to have been at one time buried in the central grave.

But hadn’t the repository been opened in the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the medieval coin discovered inside? A careful disassembly of the Graffiti Wall by the archaeologists revealed that the receptacle had in fact been intact since its construction, and was only cracked open by the archaeologists’ recent excavations (with sledgehammers). While taking it apart, a number of other coins fell out from the wall’s crevices; they reasoned that the medieval coin had fallen into the repository through these cracks. The remains of a dead mouse were also discovered inside, who must have entered somehow — verifying the possibility that small items might have entered the repository without breaching it.

The Petros Fragment from the Red Wall, discovered inside the repository. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Another fact that had been overlooked, seemingly irrelevant when the repository was thought to have been empty: the fragment of the Red Wall bearing the “Petros eni” (“Peter is inside”) inscription had been discovered inside the repository, jarred loose from a position on the Red Wall where the Graffiti Wall met it and covered it. Perhaps the placement of the inscription was related to the repository. Perhaps, in fact, the words had been hastily scratched just as the wall was being sealed with the bones inside.

The reliquaries in the ciborium of St. John Lateran, of the heads of St. Peter (right) and St. Paul (left).

And what of the other relics held by the Church to belong to St. Peter? The Basilica of St. John Lateran holds in its reliquaries what are believed to be the heads of Peter and Paul. The last time the Lateran reliquaries had been opened was 1804, when it was observed that only fragments remained of the heads. At least one fragment of a skull had been found with the Graffiti Wall bones — would this conflict with the remains of the Lateran skull? With the permission of Pope Paul VI, the Lateran reliquary was opened and Correnti was allowed to examine its contents. The one condition was that he could not report detailed information about the Lateran relic, for the sake of its veneration; he could only state whether or not it in any way conflicted with or contradicted the Graffiti Wall bones. After several months of careful study, Correnti announced unequivocally that the two sets of bones were consistent with each other.

The supposed relics of St. Peter returned to their repository in the Graffiti Wall. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

On June 26, 1968, Pope Paul announced to the world that the relics of St. Peter had been discovered and identified. Not every question had been answered, but the pope himself was convinced. When all examinations were complete, the researchers carefully placed the bones in nineteen clear, padded plastic containers, and with a brief ceremony, returned them to their resting place in marble repository of the Graffiti Wall.

My feelings about whether these Graffiti Wall bones are the true relics of St. Peter have been wavering back and forth. Some points for consideration:

1. This is almost certainly St. Peter’s grave (see my reasoning). At the time the Church turned the tomb over to Constantine, its leaders clearly believed the grave was intact and the relics still there, as did Constantine himself. But why weren’t these bones in the grave itself? If the Graffiti Wall bones are Peter’s, did the leaders of the fourth century Church remember they were there?
2. The Graffiti Wall repository was built for a reason, and apparently built to be hidden. If not a hiding place for Peter’s bones, then whose? Other people had been buried close to Peter — but who else might have warranted a burial in Peter’s Tropaion itself?
3. Following the decay of the flesh from these bones, the bones had been exhumed from the earth, as evidenced by the earth encrusted on them. They were then wrapped with a purple cloth, as shown by the dye stains on the bones themselves. Clearly these bones were transferred from their original grave and placed in the wall repository. And the earth on the bones is consistent with the earth of the central grave.
4. The cloth that wrapped the bones was sumptuous, of the richest royal purple and interwoven with delicate gold thread. It is doubtless these bones belonged to a greatly venerated individual.
5. The Graffiti Wall and its repository are believed to have been constructed in the mid-third century, probably the decade between 250 and 260. The repository was then sealed, and not exposed until the excavations of the 1940s. So these bones must belong to someone who died in the first three centuries. No carbon dating was performed on the bones out of a reluctance to destroy any piece of the relics, and a decision that it would not reveal any more precise date than could be reckoned by the above logic.
6. The “Petros eni” fragment was in the section of the Red Wall that was covered up by the Graffiti Wall and its repository. Could the marking refer to the resository — Peter is inside here? Was it marked as the wall was being sealed?


The surviving parts (shaded) of the skeleton believed to be St. Peter’s. Anatomically, about one half of the skeleton survives; by volume, about one third. (Walsh)

7. The bones belong to an elderly male, probably between the ages of sixty and seventy, of a sturdy build. This is consistent with the facts known of St. Peter, who is believed to have been martyred between 63 and 67.
8. The surviving skeleton, including a fragment of the skull and jawbone, were deemed not to conflict in any way with the skull and jaw fragments believed to reside in the Lateran reliquary.
9. Also very curiously, every part of the skeleton is represented by the bones but the feet, which are both absent in their entirety. Conceivably this could be a product of Peter having been crucified upside down: for an easy and hasty removal from the cross, the body might have been hacked off above the ankle.
10. At the time Constantine built his memoria encasing the tomb and St. Peter’s Basilica around it, he chose to preserve it exactly as it was, including the asymmetrical and unaesthetic Graffiti Wall, which forced the memoria to be slightly lopsided in shape (and the Niche of the Pallia continues to be to this day). Why was this part of the monument kept despite its unattractiveness? Did the Church insist on its retention, knowing it contained the relics?

At the moment, I’m leaning toward these bones being the genuine relics of St. Peter. This certainly isn’t a conclusive case. It, like so much, has to be a matter of faith for the faithful — and it’s certainly not an essential point of faith for anyone. I am reassured by the thought that this is certainly the grave of Peter, in which his earthly body decayed, and in which his dust lies, whether these are his bones or not. The magnificent church of St. Peter’s Basilica, the central church of Roman Catholic Christianity, if not all of Christendom, stands over the grave of the Prince of Apostles.

Bibliography

Books

• Walsh, John Evangelist. The Bones of St. Peter. New York: Doubleday, 1982. The first book I read on the subject. A riveting and detailed narrative and great introduction to the excavations and to the question of Peter’s bones, and the most up-to-date publication. Full text available online (but missing many of the helpful diagrams, I think).
• Kirschbaum, Engelbert, S.J. The Tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1959. A more detailed and technical account of the excavations by one of the leading excavators himself. More satisfying and informative from a technical standpoint than Walsh, which helped me in some questions I still had in visualizing the excavation.
• Toynbee, Jocelyn, and John Ward Perkins. The Shrine of St. Peter, and the Vatican Excavations. New York: Pantheon, 1957. I’ve just started reading this one. But Toynbee and Ward Perkins are two very well-known names in both history and archaeology, and this book is frequently referenced in the other two books. I understand that they, as outsiders, had a more critical approach to the excavations.
• Margherita Guarducci. The Tomb of St Peter. Hawthorn Books, 1960. I haven’t read this one yet, but I look forward to Guarducci’s account. It’s also available online.

Websites

• StPetersBasilica.org. A wonderful resource for all aspects of the basilica, including the basilica itself, Grottoes and Scavi. It is the closest one can come to exploring this magnificent church without visiting it oneself. [2014/05/12: This site is now down. I have changed all relevant links to archives of the site in the Internet Archive.]
• Ayerbe, Carolina. “Is it really the Tomb of Saint Peter under Saint Peter’s Basilica?” TheHolidaze.com. 17 April 2012. An outstanding blog post that I found early in my own explorations of the Scavi. Both of the videos she posted were extremely helpful to me in visualizing the evolution of the grave.
• Vatican Necropolis under St. Peter’s Basilica: Virtual Pilgrimage to the Tomb of St. Peter. A virtual walkthrough of the Scavi, ending at the tomb itself. I enjoyed it, and it made up in some way for my being unable to go on the Scavi tour when I was in Rome myself. Next time!

There are extensive bibliographies to additional books, articles, and other publications in the books, especially Walsh. In fact, here you go. That should lead you to most everything that’s out there — though it’s possible there have been publications since 1982.

Last time, I gave a brief history of the tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican, and of the excavations in the 1940s that uncovered the ancient pagan necropolis beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. I left the matter of the excavation of the tomb itself for this post — which is bound to be a little more technical.

A simplified plan of the lower level of the basilica, in relation high altar above (marked by the rectangle), the Clementine Chapel, the Confessio, and the Grottoes. (Walsh)

The rear of the Clementine Chapel, after the brick wall and altar decorations had been removed. The marble visible is the rear of Constantine’s memoria. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

When the excavation team at last made the decision to investigate what lay beneath the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, the immediate question was how to get at it. The archaeologists had been instructed by the pope not to disrupt the daily functioning of St. Peter’s as a church in any way — so they could not exactly dig into the altar itself, nor approach from the Niche of the Pallia in the confessio, which was visible from above and a site of pilgrimage.

The Clementine Chapel lay on the west side of the altar. Behind the chapel’s rear (east) wall should have been the area immediately under the altar. Removing the brick wall, the archaeologists discovered a wall of ancient, white marble, with a narrow strip of porphyry in the center — the rear side of Constantine’s memoria, they later realized. At the top could be seen the twelfth century high altar of Pope Callixtus II, upon which is built the present altar.

Prying loose the strip of porphyry, the excavators first saw the ancient Red Wall. Breaking a small hole in the wall, they spotted the shell of another, older altar above, nestled in Callixtus’s: the altar of Gregory the Great. Unwilling to damage the wall further, they decided to search for a way to approach the altar shrine from the north or south.

Behind the side walls of the chapel, the archaeologists discovered two narrow passageways leading to closet-sized spaces on either side of the shrine (the open spaces within the circular crypt in the diagram above).

The south side of the Tropaion. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Entering the southern space, they attempted to break through the wall of the shrine from this south. Here the team caught their first glimpse of Peter’s Tropaion: a thick slab of travertine extending from the Red Wall, its edge resting on a small marble column; it all being packed in tightly with mortar and brick.

Approaching next from the north side in the same way, they discovered a much thicker wall, covered with a facing of plaster. This wall was scratched with layers upon layers of graffiti, intertwining and crossing each other and jumbled together. Visible were many examples of the labarum, the chi-rho monogram of Christ, which Constantine had adopted as his standard following a vision of Christ at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312.

The Graffiti Wall, on the north side of the Tropaion, showing the repository. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Near the bottom of the Graffiti Wall, a narrow strip of plaster had fallen, revealing a marble-lined receptacle within the wall. At that time, the archaeologists were unwilling to damage the valuable graffiti by enlarging the hole, so they left the cavity alone, deciding instead to continue investigation on the Red Wall, the edges of which were now visible through the holes they had made to the north and the south of the shrine.

The Niche of the Pallia, as it resides within the elements of the tomb’s masonry. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Having approached the shrine from the west, south, and north, the group opted to examine it from the Niche of the Pallia on the east side. This they did at night after the basilica had closed its doors. Though unable to probe deeply without damaging the niche’s ancient mosaic, the view confirmed their findings so far. They noted that the travertine slab resting on the column, now broken, had once been a solid piece. Englebert Kirschbaum, S.J., one of the archaeologists, described their night sessions as “unforgettable not so much because of surprising discoveries . . . but on account of the enchantment radiating from the basilica at night time” (Kirschbaum 77).

A reconstruction of the Tropaion and grave, before additions, ca. 200. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Finally, the archaeologists made the decision to explore beneath the Tropaion, by digging under the Graffiti Wall on the north side. Before they did, they investigated the marble receptacle, widening the hole in the plaster and examining inside: it was empty, save for a few bone fragments, a medieval coin, and other debris.

Digging under the graffiti wall, the archaeologists first encountered a simple slab grave dating to the fourth century — one of many graves in the area, apparently of those desiring to be buried close to the martyr. Deeper, at the foundation of the wall, they struck a grave dating to the late first century. Here they decided to breach the foundation of the wall itself to see what lay behind.

The interior of the grave beneath the Tropaion, from north side looking south. On the south wall are the remains of the two retaining walls. The closure slab can be seen overhead. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Removing the bricks of the foundation opened upon a hollow space. Kirschbaum, the smallest of the excavators, crawled through the opening. Overhead, the ceiling was a marble slab apparently removed from one of the nearby pagan tombs to cover the space, slanted at an angle slightly askew from the rest of the monument. The dirt floor was littered with ancient coins, dating as far back as Imperial Rome. (An opening had been left in the tomb cover, and a shaft down from the high altar, through which pilgrims could drop offerings or pour libations.) The north wall of the chamber showed the remains of two low walls, in line with the slab above, that had been built to retain the sides of the space as the ground of the cemetery was built up around it. To the east was the wall of another grave, placed so close as to nearly breach into it. Hanging from above in one corner was the lower part of a small marble column, the twin to the one seen standing from the south, supporting the now-broken travertine slab — perhaps evidences of the sack of the basilica by Saracens in 846. To the west was the Red Wall, with a curious, rough cavity in its foundation. Kirschbaum was in the space immediately below the Tropaion. This was the central grave: this was the grave of St. Peter.

The bones found beneath the Red Wall (briefly replaced there for the photograph). (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Feeling within the niche in the foundations of the Red Wall, Kirschbaum discovered bones: not in the grave itself, but in one side of it. These he carefully handed out to his colleagues. Solemnly, the team would later present their find to Pope Pius. Despite their academic bearing, it was difficult for the archaeologists not to presume these might be the bones of St. Peter.

This was 1942. A cursory examination by the pope’s physician declared the bones to be those of a man in his seventies, strongly built. The bones would reside for years in lead boxes in the pope’s private chambers. They would not be carefully examined by a forensic expert until 1956. During the intervening years, in 1949, the press would seize upon the rumor that the bones of St. Peter had been discovered. A year later, Pope Pius announced publicly that the tomb of St. Peter had been definitively discovered, and that bones had been found, their identity unconfirmed.

The reconstructed layout of the necropolis graveyards in relation to the apse of Constantine’s basilica. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

The archaeologists would continue their excavation for another seven years, until 1950. They carefully examined and reconstructed the Tropaion and its central grave, as well as the many graves in the surrounding area, and their connection to the necropolis beneath. The courtyard that contained the Red Wall and Tropaion, called Graveyard P, was elevated from the other parts of the necropolis on account of the slope of the hill. Behind the Red Wall, an alleyway, called the Clivus, sloped down from another area of graves and passed two other tomb chambers.

Layout of graves in Graveyard P. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Graveyard P had a long history of burials, graves layered upon each other, with the ground of the area built up on a number of occasions. But the central grave, which the excavators dated to the second half of the first century, was always carefully maintained and preserved. A number of graves appeared to have been placed with the intention of being as close as possible to the central grave — perhaps these were successive popes? Eventually, in the mid-second century, the Red Wall and Clivus were built, and the Tropaion, extending from the Red Wall, was erected over the central grave.

Kirschbaum, writing in 1957, called this grave “the grave with the richest tradition in Western Christianity.” In recounting the tomb’s “historical evolution,” he noted that the very notion ran counter to the idea of a grave (Kirschbaum 120-121):

“Normally, graves have no history, not even the history of their development. If graves have any history, it is the story of their decay. They are not living beings capable of growth from small beginnings to stature and strength. Graves are true symbols of death. Like the bodies they conceal, they can only crumble. Their zenith is at the start, what comes after is disintegration. This is true not only of the modest graves of ordinary mortals which barely last for two or three generations, it is true also of the world’s proudest funerary monuments, the royal pyramids of Egypt or the gigantic mausoleums of Imperial Rome. True, they have endured thousands of years but in gradual decay. All that remains is a dreadful shadow of their one-time magnificence.

“Few graves on earth have transcended this interior rhythm of death and disintegration. And these are not the tombs of the mighty ones of the earth but those of the saints, who even after their deaths live on in the world with a mysterious effectiveness. Among them, this apostolic grave with its remarkable and mysterious power and influence that develops throughout the centuries.”

Certainly, the veneration shown to this grave, from the very day of its inception, marked it as the resting place of someone of particular importance to the community who buried its occupant — a martyr or a saint. The Christian community in Rome would not have so venerated a grave, from such an early date, if they had not known for certain that it was the grave of their Apostle and Bishop — if they had not obtained the body following Peter’s crucifixion and buried it themselves. Neither would they have lost, forgotten, or neglected it, and clearly they did not. The Church in Rome held this to be the grave of St. Peter from the time of his death; they cared for and no doubt visited the site, and yet maintained its secrecy from Roman officials throughout the centuries of persecution. When they built the Tripaion between 150 and 167, they fashioned it in the form of a pagan funerary monument, the aedicula, which commonly featured a niche or alcove for urn burials. This aedicula, however, stood over an inhumation grave, at a time when only Christians inhumed their dead.

The Petros Fragment from the Red Wall. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Is there any other physical evidence marking this tomb as Peter’s? The archaeologists discovered one item in particular, a fragment of the Red Wall that had broken off, on which they found a Greek inscription, hastily scratched in the plaster. It appears to read ΠΕΤΡΟΣ ΕΝΙ: Peter is within.

In May 1952, Pope Pius invited Dr. Margherita Guarducci, a professor of Greek epigraphy at the University of Rome, to visit the Scavi and attempt to decipher some of the more arcane and illegible inscriptions. In particular there was a graffito on the wall of one of the pagan tombs, possibly scrawled by one of Constantine’s workmen, that referenced Peter. The early excavators had been unable to read it completely. Dr. Guarducci soon reconstructed the words: PETRUS ROGA CHRISTUS JESU PRO SANCTIS HOMINIBUS CRESTIANUS AD CORPUS TUUM SEPULTIS (Peter pray Christ Jesus for the holy Christian men buried near your body).

An example of a monograph Guarducci found to represent Peter.

Regarding the Graffiti Wall, the excavators had initially been disappointed not to find the name of Peter inscribed anywhere on it. Even the name of Christ was marked only in labara. Dr. Guarducci was troubled by the tangled, overlapping, seemingly random markings that covered much of the wall. Finally, after months of poring over the inscriptions, she saw it: a cryptographic code, with every overlapping of letters relevant to the relationships between names and ideas, and monograms used to represent the names of God, Christ, and Mary. And at last, the name of Peter, in the form of monograms connecting Greek rho (Ρ), which resembles a Roman P, and E. (The form I’ve copied to the left can also double as a representation of a key, one of Peter’s attributes.)

With the combined weight of all of these factors — the dating of the grave to the late first century and the monument to the mid-second century; the evidence of continued veneration of the grave since its placement; the later graves crowded around the central grave; the early inscriptions indicating the presence of Peter’s body; both the tradition and the documentary testimony placing Peter’s gravesite on the Vatican; the construction of the Tropaion over the grave and eventually St. Peter’s Basilica itself — I consider it a virtual certainty that this is in fact the grave of the Apostle Peter.

Well, I didn’t get done this time, either. I guess there is a lot to share! Next time, the discovery of the relics of St. Peter, and a discussion of their authenticity. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion, “The Bones of St. Peter.”

All photographs and diagrams are © Fabbrica di San Pietro, and appear in Engelbert Kirschbaum, S.J., The Tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1959). Another source for much of this material is John Evangelist Walsh, The Bones of St. Peter (New York: Doubleday, 1982).