🥀 SAINT VICTORIA OF ROME 🥀

🥀 SAINT VICTORIA OF ROME 🥀

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🥀 While relics are sometimes only  'parts' of saints, some are whole bodies.

The beautiful baroque church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, displays the full corpse of an 'incorruptible saint' ~ in a glass case you can walk right up to to view.

This is the preserved corpse of Saint Victoria, one of the church's most unnerving and sinister relics. 

🥀 Victoria was an early christian martyr. 

She is one of many examples of faithful Catholic women who were killed in 304 AD, after spurning a powerful pagan suitor.

Victoria was persecuted for her Catholic faith, a tragedy that's reflected by the red slash in her throat. 

Her body was installed in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.

🥀 However, Victoria's golden curls, alabaster brows, and perfect features aren't what they seem to be. 

The BBC TV series 'Rome~A History of the eternal city' features Victoria in one of their episodes.

     "When you first look at this, 

      you think it must be a waxwork. 

      But when you look a little closer, 

      into the slightly open mouth,

      you see through the open lips of a skeleton."

🥀 Victoria is an initially radiant figure who gradually deepens into a decaying ghoul, the longer you look at her.

You can see her skeleton through some parts of the wax facade, such as her teeth and parts of her hand.

Her incomplete corpse was supplemented with wax, and her hair ~ adorned with a crown of roses ~ and clothes, came from someone else entirely!

🥀 Incorruptible bodies, are those believed to not succumb to the normal process of decomposition by way of divine intervention. 

But it does seem as though St Victoria’s body has had a little help.