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    It looked like the torso of a young adolescent girl, cut at waist-height. The beautiful, impassive face seemed covered by a thin layer of translucent material, paler than ivory, which sealed the girl’s eyes in tranquil sleep. The head was enclosed in an embroidered bonnet of pearls and gold threads that revealed barely a strip of the gently rounded forehead. The hands, crossed on the chest in the same position reproduced on the reliquary, closed to conceal the sweetness of the little bosom. A statue in wax, to judge by the pallid colour of the complexion and the fixity of the expression.
    ‘Look, the relic!’ he heard several voices exclaiming around him.
    ‘The prophet!’ cried others.
    Dante began to observe the naked bust more closely, this time with a sense of annoyance. Like this, it wasn’t a statue, but a bit of mummified body, he thought with disgust. And the stretched skin of the face, the fullness of the cheeks and the eyeballs that he imagined under the closed lids gave it a living appearance quite at odds with the chiselled horrors that were displayed more and more often in churches.
    A passage opened up in the mass of people, leading to the chain. A few feet away from him the prophet, as the crowd had called him, had spread his arms, face raised to the sky.
    ‘Behold the Virgin of Antioch crying vengeance for the unhappy Holy Land!’ he exclaimed in an inspired tone. He had a deep voice, run through with notes of roughness that revealed his southern origins. ‘She is here, a warning to your consciences!’
    A pause for effect followed, as if the man wanted to collect all his forces.
    ‘When the pagans, having broken down our defences, burst into our streets and houses, the horrendous slaughter began. And the terrible wrongs. This young saint had hidden in her house, but when the pagans invaded it, it was her father himself who rescued her from the torments that the demons would have inflicted upon her. With a blow of his sword he divided her virgin body in two. And then the miracle occurred, blinding her assailants. Witness the power of God!’
    All of a sudden the preacher lowered his arms, pointing the right one towards the statue. After a moment Dante clearly saw the Virgin’s eyelids open, their irises illuminated by a glaring light.
    A startled silence had frozen the hundreds of people crowding into the nave. Then a rumble overwhelmed everything, joining all the voices in a single exclamation of wonder.
    Even the poet had murmured something, surprised, fascinated by the relic, which continued to move. After opening its eyes completely and looking around, it relaxed the grip of its hands with a fluid motion, raising its right hand in the act of blessing those present. The delicate chest, the breasts barely prominent, seemed to be moving rhythmically.
    ‘It breathes … it’s alive!’ he heard someone shouting beside him, among the thousand other exclamations exploding all around. The relic had begun to turn its head, studying with its motionless eyes the space in front of it, as if in search of someone. It really was alive, however incredible that might have seemed.
    The first rows had fallen to their feet, overwhelmed by the crowd of people pushing violently forward, stretching their necks to get a better view.
    ‘The blade cut through her body at the level of her loins. And yet she went on living, through God’s will! She uttered terrible words against the pagans, shattering their blind arrogance, confusing them in their terror. And as they groped their way through the darkness, the few who had escaped were able to reach safety, carrying her with them to lands lit by the grace of God!’
    The Virgin continued to scan the crowd with her icy gaze. The blue of her irises was so pale as to appear almost white. When her eyes met Dante’s, for a moment the poet had a sense that they were looking for him, out of everyone.
    ‘She will lead us to recapture the lost East. We