In the late thirteenth century, followers of the Italian abbess Clare of Montefalco dissected her heart in search of a crucifix.

By: Amelia Soth October 26, 2023 4 minutes

In an abbey in a small Italian town, a fresco shows a haggard Christ shoving the end of his cross into a woman’s chest. Perhaps half the cross has been mysteriously absorbed into her body; she calmly gazes upward, guiding it inward with gentle hands. This is Saint Clare (Santa Chiara) of Montefalco, abbess in the late thirteenth century. The painting depicts a vision she had, one she recounted so often that, upon her death, her fellow nuns decided to actually cut open her heart in search of the cross of which she had spoken so frequently.

This dissection represents an early entry in what would become a tradition of performing autopsies to consider an individual’s sanctity, according to historian Simon Ditchfield. The stones formed inside organs, revealed after death, served as “potential markers of sanctity in early modern Italy,” explains historian Jetze Touber.

Inside Clare, examiners found not only a tiny crucifix, but an array of the instruments of the passion: “a shroud, a crown of thorns, three nails, a lance, a sponge, a whip and a column,” all formed out of the flesh of her heart. On top of that, three stones were discovered in her gallbladder. According to Isidoro Mosonio, then Vicar General of Bologna, the stones were

colored like ashes, equal in appearance, color, and weight, and laid out in the gallbladder in such a way that a triangular form resulted, by which the secrets of the Very Holy Trinity were represented.

At least, that’s the story told at Clare’s canonization trial, a few years after her death. The case was controversial, notes historian of religion and science Bradford Bouley. The nuns were suspected of planting the relics, and it was rumored that in life, Clare had consorted with heretics. Although the nuns were ultimately judged innocent of subterfuge, Clare would not be officially declared a saint until centuries later.