reference to it is found later (1435), in the sermons of the Dominican preacher Leonardo Mattei of Udine ("In festo Corp. Christi", xiv, ed. Venice, 1652, 59) and by Antoninus of Florence (Chronica, III, 19, xiii, 1), the latter, however, does not say (as the local legend claims) that the priest doubted the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, but, merely that a few drops from the chalice fell upon the corporal. For the rest, similar legends of the "blood-stained corporal" are quite frequent in the legend collections of even earlier date than the fourteenth century, and coincide with the great Eucharistic polemics of the ninth to the twelfth centuries. The Feast of Corpus Christi is one of the major public holidays for the city of Orvieto, during which the Corporal of Bolsena is paraded around the city with much fanfare. The left half of a large fresco in the Apostolic Room of the Vatican Palace, titled The Mass at Bolsena, was painted by the Renaissance painter Raphael. Because of its red pigmentation, caused by expression of the dye prodigiosin, and its ability to grow on bread, S. marcescens has been proposed as a naturalistic explanation of medieval accounts of the "miraculous" appearance of blood on the Corporal of Bolsena. References External links "Orvieto", article from The Catholic Encyclopedia Relics associated with Jesus Mythological objects 1263 in Europe