Explore the mystery behind Saint Valentine’s relics, scattered across Europe from his skull in Rome to a vial of blood in Dublin. Are these bones really his, or is the story of the patron saint of love more fiction than fact? Join us as we uncover the truth behind the relics and the man behind Valentine’s Day.

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References

Author Unknown (2012) “Relics of St. Valentine at Whitefriar Street Church”, Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/relics-of-saint-valentine-at-the-whitefriar-street-church

Author Unknown (2013) “What is Valentine's Day and how did it start?”, BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16945378

Author Unknown (2018) “St Valentine: Does this 3D reconstruction show his face?”, BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-43056345

Cruz, J.C. (1984) Relics: What They Are and Why They Matter. Our Sunday Visitor Inc., Huntington, Indiana, USA.

Estabrook, K. (2016) Who was St. Valentine, really? The gruesome history behind the “day of love”, The Chanticleer, 54(14), 1.
Hales, J.W. (1882) St. Valentine's Day, The Antiquary, 5, 41-50.

History.com Editors (2024) “History of Valentine’s Day”, History. https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2

Holleman, A. W. J. (1973) Ovid and the Lupercalia, Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, 22(2), 260–68.

Moraes, C. (2017) “The 3D facial reconstruction of Saint Valentine, the patron saint of lovers!”, Arc-Team Open Research. https://arc-team-open-research.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-3d-facial-reconstruction-of-saint.html

O’Connell, R. (2022) “Behind the mystery of Saint Valentine’s bones”, National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/behind-the-mystery-of-st-valentines-final-resting-place

Sachs, E. (1963) Some Notes on the Lupercalia, The American Journal of Philology, 84(3), 266–79.

Tennant, P.M.W. (1988) THE LUPERCALIA AND THE ROMULUS AND REMUS LEGEND, Acta Classica, 31, 81–93.

The Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica (2024) “Lupercalia”, Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lupercalia

The Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica (2024) “Saint Valentine”, Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Valentine

Music

Danse Macabre by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?collection=005
Artist: http://incompetech.com/