The crown of thorns: where is the relic kept today?

La crown of thorns it is that crown that the Roman soldiers put on Jesus, humiliating him shortly before his death sentence. But where is this most precious relic now found?

In 1238 the emperor of Constantinople Baldwin II in order to get support to defend his empire he offered the crown to Louis IX king of France. There was only one problem, the crown was located in Italy and precisely a Venezia. It was there because the Venetians had kept it as a pledge to guarantee a large loan granted to the emperor himself. In order to obtain it, King Louis IX paid the debt and took it with him
the relic

The crown of thorns, one of the most important treasures of Notre Dame

The crown, for several centuries, came preserved in several places in France and was hosted in Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. This was built precisely to give it a worthy conservation. The church returned to its possession only after the French Revolution and after being kept for some time in the Bibliothèque nationale. It was placed in the place where the cathedral of Our Lady.

The relic is obtained with the intertwining of a plant native to Scandinavia and Brittany (Juncus balticus). Currently the crown is well preserved inside a glass circle. Fortunately, it was not damaged following the 2019 fire that destroyed much of the cathedral. The crown, however, has something strange that cannot fail to jump to the eye when you see it. In fact it is intertwined but it is without thorns.

The thorns have not been lost and are currently found around the world. They came separate and placed in other reliquaries, perhaps by St. Louis and later by his successors. The plugs are in Belgium, Germany, France, Spain and even Italy. There are also other relics considered to be third class that are objects who have come into contact with the Holy Crown and with thorns. However, these are little considered since it is not possible to know the whole history of each single plug.