Sacre reliquie dei cimiteri di Roma

The Roman catacombs, burial places of the Early Christians Martyrs, became from the last third of the 16 th century, a place that provided a great quantity of relics to Christianity, because it was believed that the bones found inside those galleries belonged to holy martyrs who were victims of the persecutions of the Roman empire. This phenomenon of donation continued until the end of the 19th century, creating cases of study of great interest, in which the characters involved in the donations, the material conditions and the transfer of the bones, and their reception in the towns where they arrived, show the validity of a practice associated with the cult of relics that had Italy as its center, and France and Mexico as territories benefited with numerous donations. A selection of donations from each of the aforementioned countries provides a frame of reference to begin to draw the first lines of study of this international phenomenon that arose, in several cases, in the midst of the political and social struggles that would lead to those nations to establish as modern States, where despite the controversies between the religious and civil powers, the veneration of holy martyrs had a presence and importance.