For the record: the only relic of Catherine of Siena that is visible in Venice's Santi Giovanni e Paolo is the one Marjorie photographed and kindly shared with us. The relic is indeed her right foot, brought to the community by one of her hagiographers, Tommaso Caffarini (who himself is buried in the same church, under the polyptych of Sts Vincent Ferrer, Christopher and Sebastian by Giovanni Bellini, in the south aisle).

John makes an interesting observation about the foot, notably that it may present us with 'a puncture that will have been one of her stigmata and that seems to have a trail of dried blood before it'. If any of you are aware of other observations that chime with John's, I would be interested to know of them. Catherine's hagiographers were at pains to say that Catherine asked Jesus to make her stigmata invisible, and that Jesus did so.

George FERZOCO

On 27 Jun 2010, at 23:34, Marjorie Greene wrote:

Oh, goodness. What was I thinking? And where did I get "hand"? I'll be back in Venice in 2011 and will try to determine where - other than in my bird brain - I got "hand." It is indeed clearly a foot.

This MAY be an explanation... I find this sort of thing repulsive and I may have just glanced at the thing and saw what I took for a hand. Or it may have been intrusion of the hand - and it is the hand - of Francis Xavier (I think, correction sought) at the Gesù in Rome.

In any case, this is the only relic of C. of S. that I saw in Venice. I'll adjust the album description on the share site at once. Thanks for pointing out the error.

MG

Marjorie Greene
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/

--- On Sun, 6/27/10, John Dillon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [M-R] Catherine of Siena (WAS: Re: [M-R] saints of the day 26. June)
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010, 9:05 PM

On Sunday, June 27, 2010, at 1:57 am, Marjorie Greene wrote:

> Additional images from Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice may be seen at:
> http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/2582
> The hand of Catherine of Siena is also displayed in a reliquary there.

Thanks for the images, Marjorie.

Does SS. Giovanni e Paolo also have a _hand_ of St. Catherine of Siena? It's said to have one of her feet. Your image here of a reliquary with a right foot:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/2597
following a shot of a placard naming C.:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/2596
presumably shows the relic in question (with a puncture that will have been one of her stigmata and that seems to have a trail of dried blood below it).

This Italian-language Wikipedia article says that SS. Giovanni e Paolo has C.'s _left_ foot (scroll down to "Le reliquie"):
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterina_da_Siena
Proving once again how unreliable Wikipedia can be in what would seem to be a simple matter of observable fact?

Best (and eschewing comments about putting one's best foot forward),
John Dillon