Few Catholic relics are more linked to a single city than the blood relic of St. Januarius (San Gennaro) is to Naples. Housed in a silver and crystal reliquary through which it is just visible, the blood, normally solid, is seen to liquefy twice a year, on the two feasts of the saint. As the most important relic of the city’s protector, it has accompanied Neapolitans in procession and feast-day ceremony, through thick and thin, plague and famine, war and volcanic eruption, across the centuries. And few Catholic relics are still so alive to the inhabitants of their host city. The saint’s blood continues to represent such a totem of the city’s fortunes that politicians seem unable to resist the charisma that kissing the reliquary is thought to impart, most recently (September 19, 2017) in the case of the populist Five Star Movement’s own prime ministerial candidate.
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia. Il segreto di san Gennaro: Storia naturale di un miracolo napoletano. (Einaudi Storia, no. 69.) Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 2016. Pp. xv, 410. €32.00.
David Carmine Gentilcore
2018-01-01
Abstract
Few Catholic relics are more linked to a single city than the blood relic of St. Januarius (San Gennaro) is to Naples. Housed in a silver and crystal reliquary through which it is just visible, the blood, normally solid, is seen to liquefy twice a year, on the two feasts of the saint. As the most important relic of the city’s protector, it has accompanied Neapolitans in procession and feast-day ceremony, through thick and thin, plague and famine, war and volcanic eruption, across the centuries. And few Catholic relics are still so alive to the inhabitants of their host city. The saint’s blood continues to represent such a totem of the city’s fortunes that politicians seem unable to resist the charisma that kissing the reliquary is thought to impart, most recently (September 19, 2017) in the case of the populist Five Star Movement’s own prime ministerial candidate.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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