1820 Documented reliquary theca with relic of St. Bonaventure, The Seraphic Doctor of the Church

Oval glass-fronted silvered brass pendant reliquary theca housing the first-class ex Ossibus (of a bone) relic of Saint Bonaventure. The relic is affixed to a silk ground surrounded by gilt paperolle ornamentation and identified in Latin on manuscript cedula label as S. Bonnauvent: Doc: Card:  (Saint Bonaventure, Doctor [of the Church] & Cardinal).  On the back, the theca is secured with a seal of red Spanish wax bearing an imprint of a coat of arms of Cardinal Carlo Francesco Maria Caselli O.S.M. (†1828),  Bishop of Parma (1804-1828). The relic is accompanied by the original matching authentics document issued and sealed by the order of Monsignor Caselli in 1820.

Saint Bonaventure OFM († 1274), was an Italian medieval Franciscan, scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized in 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V. He is known as the "Seraphic Doctor". He is ranked along with Thomas Aquinas as the greatest of the Doctors of the Church and was regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages.