This touched the relics of Donatus & protects against lightning strikes.

[Touch relic] / [Weather] / [Amulet]. S. Donat Martyr. Priez pour nous, afin que nous soijons garantis de la foudre & des orages. Ce Billet a touché les Reliques de St. Donat, dans l’Eglise des PP. Capucins à Arlon. S.l. [Arlon?], s.n., [c. 1738-42]. [10.7 x 4.1 cm], [1] f. engraving. Minor toning, remnants of mounting on verso.
 
 
Very rare 18th-century engraving that protects the bearer (and the bearer’s property) from harm/damage caused by lightning and storms. The power of this print comes from its having touched the relics of St. Donatus housed at the Capuchin church in the Belgian town of Arlon. 
 
The print is thus an example of a ‘touch’ relic (also called a ‘contact’ or ‘secondary’ relic), i.e., an item that contacted or was in the vicinity of a saint’s primary relic (e.g., a body part or personal item) or another holy item. 
 
Touch-relic engravings of Donatus were printed in great numbers, but very few survive today, given that they were meant to be carried on one’s person or “attached to houses, placed in steeples, towers, vineyards, fields, etc.” (J.-B. Sibenaler, p. 41) where lightning, wind, rain, and hail were considered to be a threat (and where works on paper easily perish).
 
Remarkably, an 18th-century manuscript on the Confraternity of Saint Donatus at Arlon (published in 1899) provides copious, precise information about the origin of this little engraving and how it was used, including details about its printing (see J.-B. Sibenaler). 
 
According to the Confraternity manuscript, in 1649 the remains of the 2nd-century Roman martyr Donatus were discovered in the Catacombs of St. Agnes in Rome. In 1652 they were translated to the Jesuit church at Münstereifel where they soon gained a reputation for protecting against lightning and inclement weather. In 1707, 1708, and 1719, Arlon suffered from particularly bad storms and so applied to take a portion of Münstereifel’s Donatus relics for themselves. This request was granted in 1738. 
 
Touch relics had already been used at Münstereifel, and it had been confirmed that they conferred broad protection against storms (“… on ressent tous les effets de sa protection dans les differens rencontres de tonnere et d’orage; et que lorsque les images et billets de S. Donat, qui ont touché a ses saintes Reliques, sont attachés aux maisons, ou mises dans clochers, Toures, Vignes, champs, etc:, ces endroits sont ordinairement preserves des mauvais effets de L’orage, de la foudre, et de la tempete, quoique tres souvent elles fassent du degat dans le voisinage” [Sibenaler, p. 41]). 
 
In the summer of 1738, the Capuchin church at Arlon ordered to be printed 1000 touch-relic booklets and 12,600 “tickets” labeled in Latin, German or French, like the one offered here (“il fit aussi imprimer un mille de livres allemands, et 300 feuilles de billets de S. Donat en allemande, Francois, latin, chaques feuille contenant 42 billets quon toucha a la relique pour etre distribués a ceux er celle que demanderoient” [Sibenaler, p. 44]). These items soon proved their worth in a summer storm of 1739. The Arlon St. Donatus Confraternity manuscript records several further occasions in which booklets, engravings, or ‘tickets’ were hurriedly handed out to citizens at the sight of bad weather, Reprintings 1740, 1741 and 1742 are detailed. Engravings were printed until the copperplates wore out and required replacement.  
 
The Donatus billet offered here corresponds precisely in its wording and orthography to the example described in the Confraternity manuscript (p. 60), suggesting that it could be from the first printing. Several versions of such Donatus touch relics are known not only from Münstereifel and Arlon, but also from Tournai, Mons, Brussels, and Antwerp, but most are recorded in just one or two copies. (The University of Antwerp, for example, preserves examples in Dutch, French, German, and Latin from various locations, but not a billet exactly like the one offered here; the Musée en Piconrue [Bastogne] records a similar example but with the image on the left and text on the right.)
 
The engraving depicts St. Donatus descending from the sky atop a bird and surrounded by bolts of lightning. A figure is seen in the foreground and in the background is a cityscape of Arlon, recognizable by its three principal churches and fortified city walls. The text reads, “S. Donatus Martyr. Pray for us, so that we are protected from lightning & thunderstorms. This ticket touched the Relics of St. Donat, in the Church of Capuchin Friars in Arlon.”
 
 
Not recorded in OCLC or KVK.
 
*J.-B. Sibenaler, “La Confrérie de Saint-Donat à Arlon,” Annales de l’Institut archéologique du Luxembourg, vol. 53, no. 34 (1899), pp. 32-76.