From the imperial palace in Constantinople to the remains of Calvary in Jerusalem, from the heart of Arabia to misty Britain, from abbeys to royal palaces, from small rural parishes to the largest cathedrals in Europe: a captivating journey through the complex history of Christian relics.

Baby Jesus’ teeth, the Cross, Mary’s milk, the dust from St Martin’s cloak... Relics are those tangible fragments of faith that have inspired devotion and stirred controversy. If we scroll through the list of innumerable relics preserved in shrines and churches, we cannot help but be astonished and ironic about a ‘typical’ testimony to medieval superstition and obscurantism. This is certainly the case, but if we remove the dust of time from those remains, the exploration of the stories related to them leads us into an unseen world of adventurous journeys, deceptions, theological disputes, pitched battles and secular power relations. From the earliest martyrs to the political machinations of emperors and popes, Federico Canaccini masterfully interweaves history and theology by recounting the fabulous factory of relics.