I remember hearing of the astonishment and indignation of some members of the V—— family, the first year they passed in Ancona, when the priest, having taken the statistics of the household, and ascertained that they professed the Roman Catholic faith, handed to each of them in succession a printed ticket requiring them to conform to this law. In France, they declared, they had never heard of such a measure; and they could not, even before us, forbear from expressing their disgust. It required all their mother's persuasions, and the example of her unquestioning submission to whatever emanated from priestly authority, to stifle the murmurs of the young ladies and enforce their obedience.
On Holy Thursday, after mid-day, an unwonted silence seemed to fall upon the town, unbroken till the same hour on Saturday. No bells were tolled, no matins or vespers rung, no mass celebrated in the churches; while the streets were filled with people hastening to the sepolcri, or sepulchres, of which seven must be visited by the faithful. Each church has its sepolcro, varying in the details, but agreeing as to the general characteristics of the representation. The high-altar is divested of its usual ornaments, in token of mourning; and on the platform immediately before it, surrounded by all the emblems of the Passion, is a figure in wax, of life-size, of the Saviour, as if just removed from the cross. All around and on the steps leading up are a profusion of natural flowers and tapers; and sentinels with arms reversed are stationed at intervals to keep back the crowd.
In some churches more figures are introduced—such as Joseph of Arimathea, the Beloved Apostle, the three Maries; others have a greater display of flowers and wax-lights, but the pervading effect in all is invariably the same. The complete stillness; the ceaseless, noiseless swaying of the crowd, as those who occupy the foremost places, after a few minutes' admiring inspection and a few muttered prayers, quietly give room in their turn to fresh comers; the indiscriminate blending of rich and poor, as the lady in her silken robes kneels on the pavement beside the tattered beggar; the motionless forms of the Austrian soldiers in all the glittering panoply of war, surrounding the marred and blood-stained effigy of the Prince of Peace; the saturnine, matter-of-fact faces of the attendant priests and sacristans, who hover about, re-lighting any taper that is accidentally extinguished, or adjusting any of the arrangements that may be displaced; the air heavy with the scent of flowers mingling with the exhalations of the vaults beneath, where moulder the remains of those who in their day have gazed upon this spectacle, for centuries repeated, for centuries unchanged: all this has struck each stranger in his turn, and is but a feeble transcript of the varied impressions it produces.
On Good Friday there is always a procession through the principal streets of the town, which, without any of the devotional accessories of the sepolcri—the time-worn churches, the subdued light, the hushed voices—cannot fail painfully to impress the English spectator who has not been inured to sights of this description.
By the people it was eagerly looked forward to as a pleasant variety in the monotony of their lives, an opportunity of sauntering about, of looking out of the windows, of nodding to their acquaintances, and furthering some flirtation or intrigue. Any idea of investing the pageant with a religious significance seemed foreign to the minds of the great majority of the assembled throng.
When the muffled drums were heard announcing that the procession was approaching, and a detachment of troops began to line the street under our windows, I remarked a thrill of excitement, but certainly not of awe, as every head was impatiently turned in the direction from whence the torches and banners of the confraternity of Passionisti first came in view. Men of all classes belonged to this campagnia, all similarly dressed in loose robes and cowls of grey linen, which concealed the features, a crown of thorns round the head, and a girdle of knotted cords; the difference of rank being discernible only by the whiter feet of some amongst them, and the evident pain with which they trod the sharp, uneven pavement. I must however pause to observe here, that a bent head and hoary hair would be the general accompaniments to these marks of gentle birth, were the drapery in which they are enshrouded to be suddenly thrown aside.
Next came friars and priests, all walking according to established rule and precedence—Capuchins, Franciscans, Carmelites, Dominicans, Augustinians, carrying lighted tapers and chanting litanies. Following these were more Capuchins, to whom was especially delegated the office of carrying all the objects belonging to the Crucifixion; and thus they passed on, white-bearded, tottering old men, bearing successively an emblem of this day's great sacrifice, profaned by being paraded, like some mummery of old, before the idle crowd, who gazed, and sneered, and talked, indifferent to the awful event thus commemorated. The crown of thorns, the purple robe, the scourge, the nails, the dice with which the soldiers had cast lots, the spear, were all carried slowly along; the sacred form itself, in the utter prostration of death, stretched upon a bier, coming next in view. A few knelt here, not one in twenty though; the rest all listless, unthinking, or unbelieving.
Some paces behind, upon a sort of platform, appeared a huge image of the Madonna, considerably above the size of life, dressed in violet robes, with long brown ringlets, and pierced through with seven daggers—all the spiritualized beauty with which the “blessed among women” should be invested, lost in the vulgarity of this most material representation. This, with the dignitaries and magistrates of the town walking two and two, closed the procession; after which marched more soldiers, those who had been stationed along the streets falling into the ranks, and the band performing a funeral-march—the same the Austrians always play after the interment of any of their comrades.
I have not exaggerated this description. To some enthusiastic poetic minds, to whom such things seem beautiful in the abstract, I know my account will prove distasteful. But thus it always is: a close insight into the countries where these time-honoured traditional ceremonies are still maintained, strips them of the mysterious charm with which, to a foreigner, they might seem to be invested, and accounts for the levity with which they are witnessed by those familiarized to them since their earliest childhood.
As another instance: there was the custom of blessing the houses on Easter Saturday, which I had heard of long before visiting Italy, and imagined must prove equally edifying and impressive. But when I saw a very dirty priest in his alb—I think that is the name—a sort of linen ephod worn over the black gown, attended by a still more dirty little boy carrying holy-water, walking hastily through the house, muttering a few unintelligible words on the threshold of each room, only pausing a little longer in the kitchen to crack a few jokes with the servants, without the least semblance of devotion on his side or of reverence on theirs—and gratefully accepting a few pauls sent out to him by the family—why, I fell from the clouds, and my cherished illusions were dispelled. It seemed almost as hollow as blessing the horses on the 17th of January, the festival of St. Anthony, the patron of animals, which had previously greatly astonished me.