“Corpi santi”: agiografia, archeologia e bioarcheologia delle reliquie milanesi,

Archaeological investigations in the funerary areas of Milan over the last few decades have allowed for the conservation and study of a large quantity of human remains dating from between the 3rd and 5th centuries that offer, from an anthropological point of view, a detailed picture of the varied population that lived in Milan during that period. The research in this field, promoted by LABANOF, has recently also been directed towards considering the skeletal remains of martyrs and bishops preserved in various churches in the city. The results of this approach, verifying the physical and health characteristics of these individuals, allow a comparison with the data obtained from the afore mentioned large sample of osteological finds and to relate them to their contemporary socio-anthropological context in order to evaluate affinities and differences; but they also make it possible to recover biographical notes that can be compared with what is known thanks to written and iconographic evidence, so as to verify, integrate, and possibly contradict, the hagiographic information handed down.