Update: Is Body of Missing Girl Concealed in Vatican Tomb?

Update: Is Body of Missing Girl Concealed in Vatican Tomb? Mar 4, 2019 19:17:24 GMT -5

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Post by Graveyardbride on Mar 4, 2019 19:17:24 GMT -5

Is Body of Missing Girl Concealed in Vatican Tomb?

Emanuela Orlandi (above), the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican policeman, disappeared June 22, 1983. Now, an anonymous tip suggests the girl’s body lies within a tomb in the Vatican’s Teutonic Cemetery.

Theories have circulated for decades concerning what happened to the teenager and the anonymous tipper instructed the family to check a tomb in the cemetery, which lies between St. Peter’s Basilica and the St. Paul VI Audience Hall. “I can confirm that the letter of Emanuela Orlandi’s family has been received ... and the requests it contains will be studied,” Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said in a statement.

This followed the publication in Italy’s Corriere della Sera daily on Monday of the request of Lauro Sgro, the family’s lawyer. The attorney received a note last year telling her to “look where the angel is pointing,” along with a photograph of the tomb.

The grave in question features a marble angel holding a tablet with the inscription “Rest in Peace” in Latin, above a stone with an inscription dedicated to Gustav Adolf, Cardinal Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, (1823-1896) a member of the Hohenlohe family of Germany. He claimed to be descended from Eberhard, one of the early dukes of Franconia who became a Cardinal of the Catholic Church and one of the famous individuals of ecclesiastical, artistic, political, or diplomatic backgrounds, buried in the ultra-exclusive cemetery.

Tests conducted on the tomb since the tip-off reveal the sepulcher has been opened at least once, and the date on the tablet is different to that on the tombstone. Sgro said she has also been able to “verify that some people knew there was a chance Emauela Orlandi’s body had been hidden in the German cemetery (above).” People had also been leaving flowers on the tomb, she added.

According to some theories, the teenager was snatched by an organized crime gang to exert pressure on Vatican officials to recover a loan. Another claim was that she was taken to force the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted to assassinate Pope Jean Paul II in 1981, from prison.

The family braced for a breakthrough in October when human remains were discovered on a Vatican property, only to be disappointed when tests showed the skeleton did not belong to a teenage girl.

In ancient Roman times Nero’s circus was located where the Teutonic Cemetery is today and it is also a place where many Christian martyrs met their deaths. In 799, a Schola Francorum was spoken of for the first time. For this reason, on the wall of the building there is a ceramic depiction of Charlemagne as the founder. A clearer idea of its history came in the mid-15th century when the Holy Year 1450 brought many pilgrims to Rome.

Sources: Isabella Nikolic, The Daily Mail, March 4, 2019; The Vatican State and Catholic Hierarchy.

Update: Is Body of Missing Girl Concealed in Vatican Tomb? Jul 12, 2019 18:41:25 GMT -5

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Post by JoannaL on Jul 12, 2019 18:41:25 GMT -5

Vatican Tombs Did Not Contain Girl's Bones ... Nor Anything Else

VATICAN CITY – The tombs of two 19th-century German princesses were pried open at a tiny Holy See cemetery on Thursday and turned out to be completely empty, dashing any expectations they might have contained remains of a teenager who vanished in 1983 after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment.

Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance is one of Italy’s most enduring mysteries and the opening of the tombs at her family’s request was just the latest in possible leads that led nowhere. Instead, the inspections raised a new question: What happened to the remains of the two princesses who were buried in the side-by-side tombs in 1836 and 1840, respectively, in peaceful Teutonic Holy Field near St. Peter’s Basilica? “The tombs are empty. We are all amazed,” Orlandi family lawyer Laura Sgro told reporters. It was Sgro who received an anonymous letter suggesting the family check the tomb in the cemetery where a stone angel holds a scroll reading “Requiescet in pace,” ( “Rest in peace”).

Witnessing the tomb’s opening along with Sgro and a technical expert for the Orlandi family was Pietro Orlandi, whose 15-year-old sister disappeared June 22, 1983, after leaving for her music lesson in Rome. The girl’s father worked as a messenger at the Vatican and the family lived in Vatican City State.

The Vatican said in a statement that the opening of the tombs “yielded a negative outcome. No human remains nor funereal urns were found.” The inspection of Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe’s tomb turned up an underground chamber measuring roughly 13 by 12 feet that was “completely empty.” Then the stone lid of the adjacent sarcophagus of Princess Charlotte Federica di Mecklenburg was removed and inside “no human remains were found,” the Vatican said. Relatives of the two princesses were informed the tombs did not contain the bodies of their loved ones.

A Holy See spokesman, Alessandro Gisotti, said the Vatican is combing through documentation concerning two structural projects that involved the cemetery area, one in the late 19th century and the other between the 1960s and 70s, in case such work might explain why the remains of the princesses weren’t in the tombs either.

The Vatican had announced it had engaged a forensic anthropology expert, who is a professor of forensic medicine at a Rome university, to examine the remains and prepare them for DNA testing.

Pietro Orlandi remarked that in a certain sense, the fact no bones were found was “personally a relief,” because it would have been upsetting to view remains that might have been those of his sister.

There has been speculation about Orlandi’s fate for years. Conspiracy theories have abounded, including allegations she was kidnapped as part of a failed bid for the release of the Turkish gunman who shot and severely wounded Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.

Last year, two sets of remains were discovered during renovations in the basement of a building on the grounds of the Vatican’s embassy in Rome, however, scientific testing indicated the remains were not those of Orlandi.

Source: The Associated Press, July 11, 2019.