Church of St. Margaret of Antioch

This guide to the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Vernazza, Cinque Terre, opens with a wooden box that washed ashore before 1318, said to hold relics of the martyr Margaret of Antioch, and the village's decision to build her a church at the water's edge. It follows the storm that tore the half-finished structure apart and sent the relic back into the sea, and the itinerant stonemasons of the Maestri Antelami guild, part of a network working the Ligurian coast, who returned to try again with dark slate cut from the cliffs behind you.