in 1703, was replaced by another edifice where the relics of S. Bernardine are still venerated. The body was still intact in the seventeenth century.
With regard to the flow of blood, the same phenomenon was observed and even yet continues in the case of S. Nicolas of Tolentino, who died 10 September, 1306, and who is buried in his Basilica there. Two hundred years after his death some persons who had concealed themselves in the church over night endeavoured to cut off an arm and carry it as a relic. No sooner had they commenced this operation and gashed the flesh with a knife than blood flowed freely as from a living body.
The first Patriarch of Venice, S. Lorenzo Giustiniani, died 1 January, 1455, and so great was the concourse of people to venerate his remains that the body lay in the Church of San Pietro di Castello (formerly SS. Sergio e Bacco) for no less than sixty-seven days, exposed to the air. Although it had not been embalmed the face continued of a fresh and ruddy complexion as in life. The body of the Franciscan, S. John Capistran, who died 23 October, 1456, was found to be incorrupt in 1765; and the body of the Augustinian nun, S. Rita of Cascia is still intact in her convent shrine among the Tuscan Hills. The body of S. Didacus, a lay brother of the Friars Minor who died at Alcala on 12 November, 1463 was exhumed four days after death and remained above ground for six months, supple and whole; it was still without blemish in 1562. As late as 1867, the body of the foundress of the Ursulines, S. Angela Merici, who died at Brescia, 27 January, 1540, was found to be entire.
It may not impertinently be remarked here that the Orthodox Russian Church includes in its calendar a number of bishops, monks, and holy hermits, whose bodies have been discovered to be intact at some considerable period after death, and if not actually in these days an entirely necessary condition for canonization incorruption is at any rate regarded as evidence of extraordinary sanctity. At Kieff there is (or was) a famous sanctuary which contained the bodies of no less than seventy-three venerable religious. I have been told by those who have visited this shrine that these are incorrupt, although dark and mummified. They are robed in rich vestments and laid out in open coffins for general honour and
