Material characterization of an 18th-century Roman martyr' reliquary: the case study of Saint Fortunato from Guimarães, Portugal

The Roman Catholic Church encouraged the manufacture of life-size reliquaries simulating human bodies to worship and display the bones exhumed from Rome's catacombs (corpi santi) of the allegedly early martyrs of Christianity. Embraced by the Baroque aesthetic, this type of devotional receptacle began to be produced in the late 17th-century and rapidly spread throughout Western Christendom. Portugal was no exception. Between the 18th and the second half of the 19th centuries, dozens of convents, churches, and oratories received the simulated bodies of those saintly heroes. In the last four years, the first author's doctoral research has focused on the historical and scientific study of this typology of reliquaries in Portugal. While establishing a national inventory, the study of historical documentation has shown the Roman origins of the sacred bones, their religious value, and the popular devotions associated with them. As for the scientific research it has highlighted the manufacturing techniques and materials adopted by pious craftsmen. This work aims to present the analytical results on the simulacrum of Saint Fortunato Martyr from Guimarães. This simulacrum was produced during the papacy of Pius VI (1775-1799) as several other simulacra inventoried in Portugal and abroad. A batch of analytical techniques that included Optical Microscopy (OM), Fourier-Transform InfraRed Spectroscopy (FT-IR), High-Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled with Diode Array Detection and Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-MS), and Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-Rays Microanalysis (SEM/EDX) were utilized for morphological evaluation and chemical compositional analysis of fibres, dyes and metal threads. The results will provide new data for the material characterization of 18th-century life-size Roman martyrs' simulacra.