Naples ’44

Saint / folklore

San Gennaro

San Gennaro
Louis Finson · Public domain

Background

Januarius, also known as Januarius I of Benevento, was Bishop of Benevento and is a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church. While no contemporary sources on his life are preserved, later sources and legends say he died during the Great Persecution, which ended with Diocletian’s retirement in 305.

San Gennaro (Januarius) was bishop of Benevento and was beheaded at Pozzuoli around 305. His relics came to Naples in the fifth century, and he has been the city’s principal patron for over a thousand years. The first recorded liquefaction of his blood dates from 1389. Two glass ampoules of a dark, solid substance kept in his cathedral chapel are shown to the people three times a year. On most occasions the substance turns liquid, sometimes in minutes, sometimes after hours. No accepted scientific explanation has been agreed, and the Church has never formally declared it a miracle.

Neapolitans read the speed of the liquefaction as an omen. Failures are remembered alongside disasters: the blood failed in September 1980, two months before the Irpinia earthquake. In 1527, during a plague, the city made a formal vow to build him a new chapel. The result, the Royal Chapel of the Treasure, holds one of the richest collections of jewellery in the world. Naples has several dozen co-patron saints, and San Gennaro’s relations with them, rivalries included, are part of the city’s folklore.

Further reading:

Januarius · San Gennaro (it) · 1980 Irpinia earthquake · Treasure of San Gennaro · Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro

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In Naples ’44

The patron of Naples, whose dried blood is expected to liquefy on his feast days; the wartime vigils over whether — and how fast — the miracle happens run through the book as a barometer of public nerves, and his rivalry with San Sebastiano flares during the eruption, when his image is smuggled to San Sebastiano ‘on an outside chance’.

Appears in 7 diary entries.

  1. October 13 1943
    A week of fruitless "spy scares" turns up only harmless eccentrics, while a new bureaucracy of mail and phone censorship intercepts trivia.

    catacombs entered from behind his church

  2. March 22 1944
    Lewis travels through falling ash and volcanic debris to report on the threatened town of San Sebastiano as lava approaches.

    image smuggled in as backup during the Vesuvius eruption

  3. March 24 1944
    With the eruption subsiding, Lewis meets Del Giudice, an eccentric folklore writer and expert on San Gennaro and Vesuvius.

    deposed then reinstated as protector, 1799 episode

  4. March 25 1944
    Widespread fear that San Gennaro's blood may fail to liquefy reflects a surge of religious "miracle" fervor sweeping wartime Naples.

    blood-liquefaction miracle, fear of its failure

  5. May 1 1944
    The onset of summer heat is announced by a street vendor's mournful cry, prompting the city's rhythms to visibly slow down.

    Whitsun liquefaction expectation

  6. May 7 (i) 1944
    San Gennaro's blood liquefies, but slowly — considered a bad omen — after days of anxious public vigil that could have sparked unrest if it had failed.

    blood liquefies slowly, seen as ill omen

  7. July 12 1944
    A rare day off as tourist to Pozzuoli reveals a town strangely untouched by the war, calmer and more foreign-feeling than the rest of the Naples area.

    martyrdom at Pozzuoli; blood-stained rock relic said to react in sync with the cathedral miracle

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