It is a Christmas paradox that St Nicholas, the spirited giver, should be entombed in Bari, an Italian city more famous for the spirit of taking. Known to many as either a ferry port or a den of thieves, it is in this uncelebrated city on Italy's Adriatic coast that the remains of the Santa Claus prototype are interred. Appropriately for a city with Bari's reputation, it took a theft to put them there.
Born in Asia Minor (now Turkey) in the third century to wealthy parents, the future St Nicholas dispensed of his inheritance by using it to help the needy and the suffering.
One story tells of the young Nicholas assisting a poor man with three daughters. With no money for dowries, the man was on the brink of selling one daughter into prostitution or slavery. On three separate occasions Nicholas threw bags of gold through an open window of the man's house - the gold was said to have landed in stockings hung before the fire to dry.
A variety of other selfless acts earned St Nicholas his standing as patron saint of, among others, children, sailors, students, paupers and - prophetically - thieves. But it is with Christmas that St Nicholas is indelibly associated, his image having morphed into that of the white-bearded, red-suited Santa Claus.
When St Nicholas died in about AD345, his remains were interred in the Turkish town of Myra, but in 1087 they were stolen by Bari sailors, whisked away
to their home town and installed in a crypt. A basilica was built over the top.
