![]() ‘Martyrdom’ was what also happened when the Romans tried to make the saints give up their religion and worship the old gods. These ‘martyrs’ were thought to be a bit like Jesus Christ, because he also died for his religion, nailed to a cross in Golgotha in the Holy Land. The holiest saints were the ones who were made to suffer horribly for their faith. People who lived or died this way often became saints, the specially honoured servants of God. You could even find yourself dead – executed by the leaders who worshipped the old gods. To be an especially good Christian – doing good works like healing the sick – might bring you to the attention of the authorities and then you could find yourself in deadly trouble. In the very very old days, when the Christian religion was as new as a fresh laid egg, it was quite a risky thing to be a good Christian. So let me try to tell you how it started. ![]() But I do declare and admit that if a stranger were to arrive in Venice from a distant planet they would quite probably find our love of bones very hard to understand. Now I was brought up with these things and so do not think them so odd. But, like any fairy-story, the mad love of saints has a certain strange sense to it. ‘Mad’ is the only word I can use for it, because the Venetians loved those old bones and rags so much. The Venetians were mad for a bit of saint. Relics can also be things that saints once touched or wore, such as shrouds, nails or sandals. ‘ Relics are bits of saints: fingers, knee-bones, skulls, noses, ribs, toes and teeth. This is how she relates Venice’s obsession with saints and their relics: At twelve years old, Lily is in some ways naïve, in other ways very knowing. As guests start disappearing from a hotel in Venice, Lily becomes aware that the fakery is not a victimless crime. She lives in a convent on the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon, the site of a factory churning out fake saint bones. In the end, I decided to put my explanation in voice of an orphan named Eulalia, known as ‘Sorrowful Lily’.
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