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A bright, overhead light automatically flashes on inside the
long, narrow room, as the door opens up. The room contains floor-to-ceiling
shelves on both sides. The shelves support skulls that have browned over the
years, as well as antique crosses inlaid with gold and precious jewels. There’s
a glass ossuary that contains an entire hand, the skin shriveled around the
bone, the black fingernails overgrown by inches. A metal plate attached to the
wood base of the ossuary is embossed with the words, “Mano destra di
Michelangelo” or “Right hand of Michelangelo.”
There are dozens, if not hundreds,
of old leather-bound volumes that must be worth a fortune to collectors. The
floor space contains mounts for suits of armor, small arms of the Renaissance
and Medieval periods, plus d
