18th century oval glass-fronted reliquary theca housing first-calss ex ossibus (from the bone ) relic of Saint Catherine of Sienna, Doctor of the Church. The relic is affixed to a multi-color silk background, surrounded by golden paperolle and silver cord ornamentation and identified in manuscript cedula label as S. Cathar[inae] / Senens. V. (Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin). On the back, the theca is secured by a seal of red Spanish wax with a perfectly preserved coat of arms of Cardinal Marcantonio Colonna (†1793), Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore and Vicar General of the Roman Curia.
Saint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D. (+1380), a tertiary of the Dominican Order and a Scholastic theologian. She, together with St. Francis of Assisi, was named one of the two patron saints of Italy. In 1970, she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI, and in 1999, Pope John Paul II named her as one of the six patron saints of Europe. Saint Catherine protects against fire, bodily ills, illness, miscarriages, people ridiculed for their piety, sexual temptation, sick people, sickness, nurses and is a patron of Italy and Europe.