[ INVESTIGATIVE FILES J O E N I C K E L LJoe Nickell, CSI’s senior research fellow, is a former magician and detective. He is author of many books, including Entities and Adventures in Paranormal Investiga tion. His website is at www.joenickell.com.

In the old-town portion of Genoa,Italy, the city where ChristopherColum bus was born, stands the great

Romanesque-Gothic cathedral of SanLorenzo (Saint Lawrence).1 Here in thesubterranean Museum of the Treasury—which houses reputed pieces of the TrueCross, relics of John the Baptist, andother religious objects—is displayed IlSacro Catino, “The Holy Basin.” This isone of the most famous embodiments ofthe legendary “Holy Grail,” and I wasable to study both it and its legend therein the fall of 2009 (figure 1), attemptingto resolve some of the mysteries and con-troversies concerning it.Grail LegendsRomantic stories about the quest forthe San Gréal, or “Holy Grail”—report-edly the cup used by Jesus at the LastSupper—have proliferated for cen-turies. Popularly, the Grail (originallythe word meant “dish”) is the talismansought by the knights of King Arthur’sRound Table. The quest is known toEnglish audiences largely though Frenchromances compiled and translated by SirThomas Malory in his Morte d’Arthur in1470. Therein the Grail is representedas the chalice from which Jesus and hisdisciples drank at the Last Supper andwhich was subsequently used to catchand preserve his blood from the Cruci-fixion. This act was usually attributedto Mary Magda lene or Joseph of Ari-mathea (the latter having claimedJesus’s body for burial—see Mark15:43–46).

The earliest Grail romance is LeConte du Graal (“The Story of theGrail”), which was composed by Chré-

tien de Troyes around 1190. It de scribeshow, when a girl “entered holding thegrail, so brilliant a light ap peared that thecandles lost their brightness like the starsor the moon when the sun rises. . . . Thegrail . . . was made of fine, pure gold, andin it were precious stones of manykinds. . . .” Two other grail stories, bothwritten by Robert de Boron circa 1200,were Joseph d’Arimathie and Merlin.These gave the Grail quest a new Chris -tian focus, representing it as a spiritualrather than chivalrous search. This epicconstitutes the most important and best-known English version of the Arthurianand Grail adventures (Bar ber 2004, 19;Cox 2004, 75–76).

Other legends represent the HolyGrail variously as a silver platter, amiraculous cauldron or dish of plenty, asalver bearing a man’s severed head (likethat of John the Baptist in Matthew14:3–12), or a crystal vase filled withblood. Over time the Grail has alsobeen represented as a reliquary (con-taining the Sacred Host or holy blood),a secret book, an effigy of Jesus, thephilosopher’s stone, and many otherportrayals. Around 1205 in a Bavarianpoem titled Parzival, it was describedas a magical luminous stone, morespecifically as an emerald from Lu-cifer’s crown that had fallen to earthduring the struggle in heaven. The termHoly Grail now popularly refers to anyobject of a quest, usually an unattain-able one (Nickell 2007, 50–53).The Historical EvidenceUnfortunately, there is no story aboutJoseph of Arimathea and the HolyGrail in any text until the close of the

twelfth century, when Robert de Boronpenned his romance. Notably, the Gospelaccounts of Jesus’s death do not suggestthat Joseph or anyone obtained a dishor other vessel from the Last Supperand used it or any other receptacle topreserve Jesus’s blood. Records of theHoly Blood—the reputed contents ofthe cup Joseph possessed—are also oflate vintage, perhaps the earliest comingfrom Mantra, Italy, in 804 (Nickell2007, 53–56).

Nevertheless, several vessels lay claimto being the true Holy Grail—sometwenty of which had surfaced by the six-teenth century. John Calvin ([1543]2009, 62, 63) reported on several of therival claimants for the title of “the cup inwhich Christ gave the sacrament of hisblood to the apostles” (at the Last Sup-per). Calvin mentioned one at NotreDame de l’Isle, near Lyons; another wasin a monastery in the Albigéois; still an-other could be found at Genoa. This was“a vessel or cup of emerald” so “costly,”says Calvin sarcastically, that “our Lordmust have had a splendid service on thatoccasion.” (See also my introduction toCalvin [1543] 2009, 32–33.)The Emerald BowlCalvin is clearly referring to Il SacroCatino, “The Holy Basin.” Most sourcesallege that this vessel—actually anemerald-green, hexagonal bowl—wasbrought to Genoa by Guglielmo Em-briaco, following the conquest of Cae-sarea in 1101.2 A fresco on the mainfaçade of the Palazzo San Giorgio (fig-ure 2) depicts crusader Guglielmo(“William” in English) holding as warbooty the distinctive Catino. Twelfth-

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century writers acknowledged the pur-ported intrinsic value of the bowl. Forexample, William of Tyre noted circa1170 that it was “a vase of brilliant greenshaped like a bowl” and that “the Ge-noese, believing that it was of emerald,took it in lieu of a large sum of moneyand thus acquired a splendid ornamentfor their church.” He adds, “They stillshow this vase as a marvel to people ofdistinction who pass through their city,and persuade them to believe it is trulyan emerald as its color indicates” (quotedin Barber 2004, 168).

Others have seemed even more skep-tical. States George Frederick Kunz inhis The Curious Lore of Precious Stones([1913] 1971, 259):

A queer story has been told regardingthe Genoese emerald. At one timewhen the government was hardpressed for money, the Sacro Catinowas offered to a rich Jew of Metz aspledge for a loan of 100,000 crowns.He was loath to take it, as he probablyrecognized its spurious character, andwhen Christian clients forced him toaccept it under threats of dire ven -geance in case of refusal, he protestedthat they were taking a base advantageof the unpopularity of his faith, sincethey could not find a Christian whowould make the loan. However, whensome years later the Genoese wereready to redeem this precious relic,they were much puzzled to learn thata half-dozen different persons claim -ed to have it in their possession, thefact being that the Jew had fabricateda number of copies which he had suc-ceeded in pawning for large sums, as-suring the lender in each case that theredemption of the pledge was certain.

Be this anti-Semitic folktale as it may,the Catino was pawned in 1319 and re-deemed in 1327 (Marica 2007, 7; “TheDish of the Last Supper” 2010). It isstill owned by the municipality ofGenoa (Marica 2007, 12).

In any event, the Catino is not madeof emerald—no matter how much itscolor and hexagonal shape give it theappearance of a faceted gemstone. Atabout fifteen inches in diameter it wouldhave been an im mense emerald indeed!Actually, ac cording to the museum’sguidebook (Marica 2007, 12), it is sim-

The Catino is not made of emerald—no matter how

much its color and hexagonal shape give it the

appearance of a faceted gemstone.

Figure 1. In Genoa, the author poses with Il Sacro Catino (“ The Holy Basin”), long believed to be the Holy Grail.

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ply of “mould-blown green glass.” Itsmanufacture is said to be Egyptian(Barber 2004, 168) or ninth-century Is-lamic (Marica 2007, 12), or possiblylater.

Its glass composition was revealedwhen it became broken (figure 3). Ac-cording to the 1910 Encyclopedia Bri-

tannica (s.v. “Genoa”), the Catino “waslong regarded as an emerald of match-less value, but was found when brokenat Paris, whither it had been carried byNapoleon I., to be only a remarkablepiece of ancient glass.” (Another view isthat it was broken on its return toGenoa [Marica 2007, 7], and a 1914New York Times story claimed—possi-bly because of erroneous translation—that it had just been “accidentally bro-ken” and was “beyond the possibility ofrepair” [“‘Holy Grail’ Shattered” 1914].)In any case, the bowl was restored in1908 and again, finally, in 1951, whenit received the metal armature thatholds the pieces together (“The Dish ofthe Last Supper” 2010; Marica 2007,7). (A rumor claims that the missingpiece—again see figure 3—was kept inParis in the Louvre [“The Dish of theLast Supper” 2010].)Unholy GrailWhen the belief that the Catino wasmade of emerald was broken to pieces, sowas the claim that it was the Holy Grail.Its alleged Christological link was as-serted long after the bowl arrived inGenoa, and it was predicated on the basisof its supposed emerald composition. Thisleap of faith was made by Jacopo da Vor-agine, archbishop of Genoa and au thorof Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend).

In a chronicle of Genoa written atthe close of the thirteenth century, Jaco -po, believing the vessel was indeed madeof emerald, linked it to one of the Grailtraditions. He cited certain Englishtexts that claimed that Nico de mus hadused an emerald vessel to collect Jesus’sblood when his body was placed in histomb and that these texts called it “San-graal”—that is, “Holy Grail” (Marica2007, 7; Barber 2004, 168).

Alas, there is nothing to credibly con-nect the Sacro Catino to a first-centuryGrail, and the same may be said of othersupposed Grail vessels. Indeed, observesBarber (2004, 170), “there is little or noevidence that anyone claimed in the thir-teenth century to possess the Grail.” Cer-tainly, claims for all such vessels datefrom after the period when most of theGrail romances were penned: between

1190 and 1240 (Nickell 2007, 60). Thisrealization should put an end to fancifulGrail quests, but it probably will not: wit-ness the popularity of such books as TheDa Vinci Code (Brown 2003) and thebook on which its author drew heavily,Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Baigent et al.1996)—silliness all. AcknowledgementsI appreciate the help I received from Mas-simo Polidoro, who in 2009 not only saw toit that I was invited to Italy’s largest sciencefestival, held in Genoa, but who, with otherskeptics including Luigi Garla schelli, accom-panied me to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo.CFI Libraries Director Timothy Binga andCFI visiting scholar Christina Stevens pro-vided valuable re search assistance.

Notes1. St. Lawrence was a deacon of the Roman

Church, martyred during the persecution of Va-lerian in 258.

2. Another source reports that the bowl wasbooty from Almeria, Spain, taken in 1147. (SeeMarica 2007, 7.)

ReferencesBaigent, Michael, Richard Leigh, and Henry

Lincoln. 1996. Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Lon -don: Arrow.

Barber, Richard. 2004. The Holy Grail: Imagina -tion and Belief. Cambridge: Harvard Uni -versity Press.

Brown, Dan. 2003. The Da Vinci Code. New York:Doubleday.

Calvin, John. (1543) 2009. Treatise on Relics, from a translation of 1854. Amherst, NewYork: Prometheus Books (introduction by Joe Nickell).

Cox, Simon. 2004. Cracking the Da Vinci Code.New York: Barnes and Noble.

The dish of the Last Supper. 2010. Available on-line (in Italian) at http://www.cicap.org/new/articolo.php?id=102013. Accessed January26, 2010.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. 1910. New York:The Encyclopedia Britannica Co.

‘Holy Grail’ shattered. 1914. The New York Times(April 18.)

Kunz, George Frederick. (1913) 1971. The Curi-ous Lore of Precious Stones. New York: DoverPublications.

Marica, Patrizia. 2007. Museo del Tesoro. Genoa,Italy: Sagep Editori Sri.

Museum of the Treasury of the Cathedral of St.Lawrence of Genoa. N.d. Museum handoutin English. Copy obtained by author, October31, 2009.

Nickell, Joe. 2007. Relics of the Christ. Lexington:University Press of Kentucky. (Additionalsources given in this source.)

Figure 2. A Genoese palace fresco depicts Guglielmo Embri-aco, merchant and military leader, with the Catino as warbooty.

Figure 3. Supposedly made of emerald, the Catino was brokenin the early nineteenth century, disproving the claim. (Photosby Joe Nickell)

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