With songs and dance they celebrate the day,
And with due honours usher in the may.
It was in the Archiepiscopal church, which was gaily adorned with hangings of various colours, gold and silver and flowers, full of people, all in their best attire. A priest in the pulpit opposite the Archbishop’s throne called on the representatives of the different parishes (seven in number), who advanced in succession, each bearing a huge cross fifteen or twenty feet high, entirely made of flowers, and adorned with THE BLOOD OF SAN GENNARO garlands and devices, all likewise of the most brilliant flowers, and, as each came up, a little cannon was fired off. They were blessed in succession, and then deposited around the throne of the Archbishop, who, after this ceremony was concluded, went up to the altar and celebrated High Mass. They told me that this festival had taken place at Sorrento from the remotest time.
After seeing the Piscine we went into a garden above, where there was a profusion of orange and lemon trees, loaded with ripe fruit; the oranges we pulled off the trees and ate; they were excellent, and as red as Morella cherries—
Whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, of delicious taste.
We could not stay long at Sorrento, and were four hours rowing across the Bay to Naples. Dined with Hill at the Villa Belvidere (a delicious villa on the Vomero), with a large, tiresome party, principally English.
Yesterday the miracle of the blood of San Gennaro was performed, and of course successfully; it will be repeated every morning for eight days. I went to-day to the Cathedral, where San Gennaro’s silver bust was standing on one side of the altar, surrounded by lights, and the vessel containing the blood on the other. Round the altar were ranged silver heads of various saints, his particular friends, who had accompanied him there to do him honour, and who will be taken this evening with him in procession to his own chapel. Acton and I went together, and one of the people belonging to the church seeing us come in, and judging that we wanted to see the blood, summoned one of the canons, who was half asleep in a stall, who brought out the blood, which is contained in a glass vase mounted with silver. It liquefies in the morning, remains in that state all day, and congeals again at night. A great many people were waiting to kiss the vessel, which was handed to us first. We kissed it, and then it went round, each person kissing it and touching it with his head, as they do St. Peter’s foot at Rome. San Gennaro and his silver companions were brought in procession from one of the other churches, all the nobility and an immense crowd attending. I had fancied that the French had exposed and put an end to this juggle, but not at all. They found the people so attached to the superstition that they patronised it; they adorned the Chapel of St. Januarius with a magnificent altarpiece and other presents. The first time (after they came to Naples) that the miracle was to be performed the blood would not liquefy, which produced a great ferment among the people. It was a trick of the priests to throw odium on the French, and the French General Championnet thought it so serious that he sent word that if the blood did not liquefy forthwith the priests should go to the galleys. It liquefied immediately, and the people were satisfied. Acton told me that nobody believed it but the common people, but that they did not dare to leave it off. It is what is called a false position to be in, when they are obliged to go on pretending to perform a miracle in which no men of sense and education believe, and in which it is well known they don’t any of them believe themselves. Miracles, if sometimes useful and profitable, are sometimes awkward incumbrances. Drove round the obscure parts of the town, and through dense masses of population, by the old palace of Queen Joan and the market place, which was the scene of Masaniello’s sedition. He was killed in the great church (in 1646).
May 4th, 1830
To the Museum, and saw the mummies which have been unrolled; they are like thin, black, shrivelled corpses; hair and shape of face perfect, even the eyelids. The canvas fold in which they are wrapped quite fresh-looking; the best preserved is 3,055 years old. Amongst the bronzes there is a bust of Livia with a wig. Dined with Toledo, the Spanish Minister. The women put their knives into their mouths, and he is always kissing his wife’s hand—an ugly little old woman. Toledo was Romana’s aide-de-camp.
May 5th, 1830
To Cumæ, and dined at the Lake of Fusaro THE BLOOD OF SAN GENNARO with the Talbots and Lushingtons; not a pretty lake, but the country near it pretty enough. A splendid sunset, with real purple. ‘Lumine vestit purpureo.’