Fun fact! Saint Valentine was beheaded, and here is a photo of his supposed skull! (which is kept in a reliquary in rome because catholics are freaky that way)
I can never ever leave this website actually
I see a reference to the Sedlic Ossuary, love the decor in that place.
this is a church that supposedly had holy ground or something that let people rot really fast, Idk what that’s about, but people really wanted to get buried there, and so they had overflow of dead people. so they exhumed old bodies and stored the bones in the church, before someone eventually said ‘hey, this would make a cool fucking chandelier.’ and then they started using the bones to decorate. this continued for several generations.
Looks like he’s sharing space with a bit of St. Patienta...maybe these are catacomb saints
I love the Sedlec Ossuary
what happened was, some dude from that town (it’s in the Czech Republic) went to the Holy Land in 1278 and brought back some dirt. he spread it in the churchyard, and then EVERYONE wanted to be buried there. because Super Extra Holy(TM). eventually they ran out of room, so they started exhuming old bodies and storing the bones aboveground instead. that’s what an ossuary is, so you have a Fun Vocab Word for the day
in 1870, the church leaders were like “these bones are kind of disorganized and just collecting dust. can anyone stack them better?”
and one František Rint, woodcarver and apparent prior incarnation of Guillermo del Toro, said, “MY TIME HAS COME”
and he. did that.
he also signed it
the church leaders must have been okay with it, because I imagine he ran the plans by them and also they didn’t immediately burn the place to the ground. but I still like to picture them looking over the initial sketches with Rint watching, and roughly these expressions on their respective faces:
(Panel from the Oglaf Comics strip, “Labyrinth.”)
and on that note, happy valentine's!
