14 DAY TRIAL // Now a Da Vinci Code-style hunt for the Holy Grail has been triggered by recent statements made by Alfredo Barbagallo, an Italian archaeologist.
He claimed that the cup is buried underneath a chapel-like room of the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, one of the seven Rome churches visited annually by Christian pilgrims. Barbagallo sustains that his affirmations are based on a two years investigation on medieval iconography inside the basilica and a description of a particular chamber of about 20 square meters with a vaulted roof ceiling, written in 1938 by the Capuchin friar Giuseppe Da Bra.
"In the corner of a wall-seat there can be seen a terracotta funnel whose lower part opens out over the face of a skeleton. Giving liquid refreshment (refrigerium) to the dead was part of ancient funeral rites." he wrote.
"This funnel is the Grail. Its presence in the church fits the sketchy accounts of its early guardians." said Barbagallo, head of the association called Arte e Mistero [Art and Mystery].
Barbagallo signals that several beautiful mosaics and frescoes in the basilica depict the sacred cup.
In 258 AD, during a Christian persecution, Pope Sixtus V entrusted the treasures of the early Church to a deacon called Lawrence (Lorenzo in Italian). Four days later, Lawrence was martyred and with his death the trace of the Grail was lost. The Holy Grail cup is said to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper and it is the subject of countless legends and has been sought for centuries. Medieval legends tracked down the sacred cup in various countries, including Britain (linked to the legend of the King Arthur).
In the The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown located it in Rossyln Chapel in Scotland, triggering a stampede to the isolated place as thousands flocked in to see it.
Barbagallo says it never went anywhere and remained with St Lawrence in his tomb. Emperor Constantine constructed a shrine on the site of Lawrence's martyrdom in the 4th century and the main part of the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura was raised in AD 580 on the same spot.
The catacombs where the cup could be found are under the authority of the Vatican's Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.
"We are aware of the reports and a few weeks ago made an initial investigation of the area with the possibility of opening the catacombs up but as yet no decision has been made." said a Vatican spokesman.