Note 126 — Chapter XII · In Umbria
Reading edition
The cathedral was begun at the end of the thirteenth century. Nicholas IV. laid the first stone in 1290. It was built to commemorate a miracle which happened to a priest at Bolsena (near Orvieto), who, disbelieving in the sacraments, beheld them turned to actual flesh and blood. The napkin with the blood stains is kept in a marvellously beautiful shrine in the Duomo—a thing of rare and exquisite workmanship in silver and enamels.