Description
Book SynopsisInvestigates an incident of holy relic theft in Rome, the lengthy legal case that followed it, and the larger questions that surrounded saints’ remains in seventeenth-century Catholic Europe.
Trade Review“A very well written and argued microhistory that tells us much about how useful saints were within the post-Tridentine period. It also does wider scholarship the service of reminding even scholars who should know better that the history of relics, true and false, did not end with the Middle Ages. Harris has a mastery of the relevant literature in several languages which is both impressive and used to telling effect.”
—Simon Ditchfield,University of York
“The Stolen Bones of St. John of Matha is fascinating and opens a window to discuss several crucial features of early modern cultural and intellectual history. Harris’s ability to draw all these features together and put them into the context of existing scholarship is impressive.”
—Stefania Tutino,University of California, Los Angeles
