Tongue of Saint John of Nepomuk.

[Relics] / [John of Nepomuk]. Attende, ne forte labaris in lingua. S.l.: s.n., s.a. [18th century]. [11.9 x 8.0 cm], [1] f. engraving on laid paper. Trimmed inside platemark, minor staining, remnants of mounting on verso.
 
 
An unrecorded 18th-century devotional engraving depicting one of the more unusual relics of Christendom: the tongue of the Bohemian saint John of Nepomuk (c. 1345-93). The tongue is now preserved at the Saint’s pilgrimage church at Zelená hora, near Žďár nad Sázavou (Czech Republic).
 
John of Nepomuk was tortured, killed, and thrown from the Charles Bridge into the Vltava River at the order of King Wenceslaus IV. The murder was political, but a legend later grew that the King executed John because John had heard the Queen’s confession and would not reveal her secrets.
 
In 1719 John of Nepomuk’s tomb was opened, and his tongue was found intact, which reinforced his status as a martyr of the Seal of the Confessional and a patron against calumnies. He was beatified in 1721, canonized in 1729, and his pilgrimage church was built between 1720 and 1729.
 
“Nepomuk Tongue” engravings and other tongue-related devotional items soon proliferated, and so our print likely dates from the 1720s or the following decades. Here the tongue is carried aloft on a cloud by putti, one of whom waves the martyr’s palm. 
 
 
*R. Hocker & W. Telesko, Johannes von Nepomuk: Kult - Künste – Kommunikation.