Item #55432 [DEBUNKING THE BLOOD OF ST. GENNARO – ANTI-CATHOLICISM IN PRUSSIA] Relation Du Miracle De la Liquefaction du Sang A l'imitation de celuy Qui se pratique à Naples au Sang pretendu de St. Janvier [Account of the Miracle of Blood Liquefaction, imitating that practiced in Naples with the alleged blood of St. Januarius]. Caspar Neumann.

[Neumann, Caspar].

[DEBUNKING THE BLOOD OF ST. GENNARO – ANTI-CATHOLICISM IN PRUSSIA] Relation Du Miracle De la Liquefaction du Sang A l'imitation de celuy Qui se pratique à Naples au Sang pretendu de St. Janvier [Account of the Miracle of Blood Liquefaction, imitating that practiced in Naples with the alleged blood of St. Januarius].

Berlin: Dans la Librairie de Hall, à la ruë de Poste, 1734. Small folio (19.7 × 16 cm). Contemporary marbled paper wrappers, spine reenforced with another piece of marbled paper; [4] pp. Somewhat spotted along foreedge; old ink number to upper right corner of first leaf; bookplate of Elmar R. Gruber; overall about very good. Item #55432

Only printing of this anonymously published report about an experiment by the Berlin court apothecary Caspar Neumann, written in a highly ironic tone, which casts the Blood miracle of St. Januarius (Gennaro) as a hoax. The dried blood of the patron saint of Naples is kept at the Cathedral and said to usually liquefy during a solemn procession in May, September, and December each year, up to the present day.

Published anonymously in the form of a letter, the work details a presentation by Neumann on January 26, 1734, before president, founders, and various illustrius members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, which apparently followed a dinner party. "Neumann [...] succeeded in demonstrating that there was a natural explanation for the apparent liquefaction of blood during the public ceremony known as the Miracle of Saint Januarius in Naples. To do this, he recreated the Neapolitan ceremony of the time using a random skull and glass vials containing a mixture he had prepared himself. By shaking the mixture, he was able to liquefy the solid, red mixture rattling in the glass vessel when it was brought close to the skull" (Alexander Kraft, "Vom Züllichauer Waisenjungen zum Königlich-Preußischen Hofapotheker in Berlin – Die erstaunliche Lebensgeschichte des Caspar Neumann, 1683–1737," in: Jahrbuch für Brandenburgische Landesgeschichte, 66, 2015, pp. 111–141). The third solid failed to liquefy, since, as the anonymous author jests, the "patron" became angry at the presence of the gathered "heretics" who were "despising [his] relics" (p. 4).

From the library of Elmar R. Gruber, a parapsychologist and researcher of anomalous mental phenomena.

VD18 1168240X. GV 1700–1910, vol. 116, p. 165.

As of November 2025, KVK, OCLC show only two copies worldwide, both in Germany, with no holdings in North America.