title: Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs
author:  Paul Koudounaris 
description: These macabre images elicit a range of contemporary references, from Goonies to bling-laden rappers to artist Damien Hirsts diamond-encrusted skull.<br /> - <strong><em>Wired.com</em></strong><br /><br />Perhaps this book is not the originator of the phrase 'skeletons in your closet,' but if it were, that closet would be looking quite stupendous.<br /> - <strong><em>Dazed Digital</em></strong><br /><br />An art historian nicknamed Indiana Bones has unearthed a haunting collection of jewel-encrusted skeletons which were hidden in churches in Europe up to 400 years ago.<br /> - <strong><em>New York Post</em></strong><br /><br />Photographer and author Paul Koudounaris gained unprecedented access to these so-called catacomb saints for his new book Heavenly Bodies. Many had never been photographed for publication before. Revered as spiritual objects and then reviled as a source of embarrassment for the Church, their uneven history is marked by one constant: a mysterious, if unsettling, beauty.<br /> - <strong><em>CNN.com</em></strong><br /><br />A compelling read. . . . The gorgeous photos that accompany the text only reaffirm the opulence of such relics.<br /> - <strong><em>Gothic Beauty</em></strong><br /><br />Smart and accessible, <em>Heavenly Bodies</em> opens the door to this largely overlooked aspect of the Counter Reformation era.<br /> - <strong><em>Hi-Fructose</em></strong><br /><br />Prepared to be amazed by the splendor and beauty of ornamented skeletal remains.<br /> - <strong><em>Palm Springs Life</em></strong><br /><br />Koudounaris takes his subject beyond historical rubbernecking and looks at how bodies can move the spiritand why we cant let go and cant look away.<br /> - <strong><em>The North Coast Journal</em></strong><br /><br />Brings to life a group of long-forgotten Catholic relics.<br /> - <strong><em>Lapham's Quarterly</em></strong><br /><br />Investigates the historic attempts to prescribe posthumous identities to skeletons, specifically those believed to be martyrs.<br /> - <strong><em>Vice.com</em></strong>
zlib_text: For Sarah.
  She knows what she did.
  
  Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
  In a strange city lying alone
  Far down within the dim West,
  Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
  Have gone to their eternal rest.
  There shrines and palaces and towers
  (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
  Resemble nothing that is ours.
  Around, by lifting winds forgot,
  Resignedly beneath the sky
  The melancholy waters lie.
  No rays from the holy heaven come down
  On the long night-time of that town;
  But light from out the lurid sea
  Streams up the turrets silently—
  Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
  Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
  Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
  Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
  Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
  Up many and many a marvellous shrine
  Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
  The viol, the violet, and the vine.
  Resignedly beneath the sky
  The melancholy waters lie.
  So blend the turrets and shadows there
  That all seem pendulous in air,
  While from a proud tower in the town