Miracles

Urns containing the remains of people who have passed don't freak me out in the least.  We have our very own tower of cremation boxes from six dogs and one cat in our basement at home.  But, Scarlett and I were totally freaked out by the reliquaries of various saints that we saw at the Medici Chapel of the Basilica of San Lorenzo this morning.  Now, I had no idea what a reliquary was until today.  It is a decorative case or container (think mini coffin) that holds bones or clothing scraps of someone, usually someone of significance.  

The reliquaries we saw today were mostly of saints of the Catholic Church and were designed like ornate glass eggs between six and twelve inches tall.  They usually contained a bone or bone fragment, but one included a petrified finger.  Fortunately, the finger was in an odd rigamortus induced position as opposed to the "oh no you didn't" position.  I could just imagine that saint's finger waving at me in judgment.  I would have grabbed the kids and run for the exit!

I was totally curious about why one would carry around the remains of saints in a glass egg.  Apparently the saints were believed to still perform miracles from the dead, so their remains were toted around for people to revere.  I am not sure where the rest of these saints' bodies are buried or if the various churches just divvied up their bodies and put them in the glass eggs.  They must have had Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci carving up the saints for the glass eggs.

Speaking of miracles, sometimes it takes a miracle to find a particular address here in Florence.  Addresses are in both blue and red numbers, and they don't integrate with each other sequentially (but they do keep odd numbers on one side of the road and even numbers on the other side).  In fact, 7-red could be blocks away from 8-blue.  The blue numbers traditionally designate residential locations and merely the number is used in the written address.  However, the red numbers traditionally designate businesses and the number plus the letter "r" is used in a written address.  Another nuance that took a little getting used to is that the address is slightly shuffled around from how Americans read an address.  In Italian, the street name comes first, followed by the house or business number.  So, our address in Florence is Via Borgo San Frediano, 37. Thank goodness for my phone and its gps software (and the kids' gps brains)!