St. John Bosco (1815–1888) — Don Bosco — was the founder of the Salesians, the Salesian Sisters, and the international network of Catholic schools, oratories, and trade-schools that became the foundation of Catholic care for working-class youth in the modern world. He died at Turin on January 31, 1888, in the city where he had spent his entire ministry.
When his body was exhumed on May 16, 1929 in preparation for his beatification, it was found substantially preserved — flesh, beard, and the features of his face all identifiable, his black cassock essentially intact. Following his beatification (June 2, 1929) and canonisation by Pius XI in 1934, his body was placed in a glass-fronted reliquary above the main altar of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin — the great Marian basilica he himself had built (1865–68). His face is now covered with a thin wax mask. The basilica receives some 4 million pilgrims a year.