LIPSANOTECA. — From the Greek λεβήσιον, “remains, relic,” with reference to the relics of the saints, and θήκη, “container”; hence, “reliquary, relic case.”
The term may be understood in the strict sense of the bag, chest, or casket intended to preserve relics (the one in Brescia is particularly well known), and in the broad sense of the place where such relics are kept in large numbers by ecclesiastical authority (e.g., that of the vicariate of Rome) or sometimes also by private individuals (such as the one commissioned on the hill of Monselice [Padova] by the Venetian Duodo family in 1605).