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Just as I began to get over our experience with the creepy shriveled hand relic thing a few weeks ago, Hannah and I took a seemingly innocent stroll over to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. I might have suspected that we’d see something creepy, since we were in the same neighborhood as the hand - and because we nearly always do - but I remained unprepared for what we found there. First, though, the building itself is absolutely spectacular. Tintoretto apparently spent about 28 years making paintings for the place, which is a really long time even on the metric system. In any case, while everybody else was focusing on the amazing ceiling, I was on the hunt for creepiness, and boy did I score. In a little room off to the side, in the middle of a table was THIS.

Now, what that is is something that looks very much like a human head in a fancy case. I’m tempted to believe that it’s a fake head except that it looked so darn real, and the fact that it seemed just imperfect enough really convinced me. The strange thing about this one was that it came out of nowhere. No warning (lawsuit in the U.S.), no information (typical in Italy), no nothing. Even the internet has proven no use in this case. It’s not clear what will be required to top this one, but I feel confident that a) it exists, b) it’s here, and c) we’ll find it.