Weird: There's a Patron Saint of Venereal Disease. Weirder? His Severed Head Hits the Auction Block Soon

Weird: There’s a Patron Saint of Venereal Disease. Weirder? His Severed Head Hits the Auction Block Soon

Are you a collector of rare artifacts? Have you always wanted the skull of a Catholic saint in your possession? Well, you’re in luck! The severed head of St. Vitalis of Assisi, who died in 1370, is prepped to hit the auction block in Duleek, Ireland on Sunday.

Vitalis, a benedict monk and hermit, gained his sainthood some years after his death, mostly thanks to some heavily publicized repentance for an early life marked by lots of sexy, sexy sinning. Since then, he has been widely attributed as the patron saint of.. venereal diseases. They really do have a saint for everything.

The skull, enclosed in a Queen Anne case, sat in the hallway of a Ango-Irish family’s home for years, relegated to an outhouse when children were present, which is exactly where auctioneer Damien Matthews came across it.

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“It is strange and it is macabre but it is very interesting object,” Matthews said.

The piece is valued somewhere between $1200 to $1800, which seems pretty low, until you consider that the number of people who collect saintly skulls is not bound to be very large.

Owning an artifact said to cure VD for roughly the amount of the hooker that ruined your life? That’s a steal.

For more on the odd item and it’s pending auction, visit Irish Central.


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