MIRACLE OF THE BLOOD

EXCERPT FROM EUROTRIPPING ©JR DAESCHNER

You may not realise it at first, but Naples is San Gennaro's town.

The cathedral houses the bones of the fourth-century martyr, and his kindly visage smiles down on Napoli from countless pillars, churches and gates to protect the volatile city from wars, plagues, earthquakes and the fires of Vesuvius.

However, the most powerful protection comes from the saint's blood. At least twice a year-including the anniversary of the saintÕs beheading-it performs a miracle on cue in front of thousands of witnesses.

The dark, dried 'blood' in two glass ampules miraculously turns to liquid, as it supposedly has done for six centuries.

So many relics materialised during the Middle Ages that sceptics tend to doubt the authenticity of all of them. Unless it's an outright hoax, though, the Miracle of the Blood is unique in that something unusual definitely takes place inside the reliquary-but no one knows why. If the dark mass is blood, what's particularly mystifying for scientists is not the fact that it liquefies, but that it goes from solid to liquid and back again.

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