Zurich 500 years ago. The city is in upheaval. Altars are destroyed, relics removed. The bones of Felix and Regula are also targeted by the reformers, but they disappear – secretly – and reappear in a chapel in the Alps. Perhaps he was sitting in the sacristy when he made the decision. Between bare walls, where only months ago the light of golden relics shimmered. Perhaps it was night. Perhaps he could hear the wind outside, the creaking of the beams. Hansli Benet knew that if he didn’t do it, nobody would. The skulls have to go. It was clear that it would come to this. In 1524 Zurich was on the threshold of a new era. The reformer Huldrych Zwingli preached against images, altars, relics – against everything that had been considered an expression of Christianity for centuries. The new faith needed no bones or icons, only the Word. And the city government played its part. Altars were removed, paintings taken down, shrines emptied. Even the Grossmünster cathedral wasn’t spared. The ...
