This chapel (the apartment), on the first floor, is accessed from a set of very narrow, winding stone stairs. Contemplating the great physical bulk of the Saint, it is difficult to imagine how he was carried up to his room. The sense of simplicity, poverty, and humility which one experiences as one ponders this bare stone setting in which so many saints had prayed and laboured, and in which the greatest of the Doctors passed his last few weeks, is almost overwhelming.

St. Thomas was taken ill near Maenza, and initially he was given a bed in that castle. But sensing his impending death he commented that if the Lord was to come and take him then he had better be found "in some religious house." Reginald of Priverno, St. Thomas's "socius" undoubtedly was familiar with, and suggested as a good hospice, the nearby Fossanova. Fossanova is a satellite of Priverno. The fierce loyalty of this saintly and humble man was to be rewarded by having his master depart this life in his own home town. St. Thomas's head is still venerated in the parish church of Priverno.

Below is the detail of the bas relief above the altar.

Finally, the next photograph is the original tomb in which St. Thomas's relics were placed. This is the left hand wall of the sanctuary, in the Abbey Church of Fossanova. The body remained incorrupt for many months after death. When the relics were claimed by the Dominicans, some of the Cistercians secretly removed St. Thomas's head and replaced it with the head of another man.