Naples ’44

Theme

Superstition & religion

Miracles, saints, folk magic, the evil eye, ritual

Appears in 9 diary entries.

  1. October 8 1943
    Floods of dubious civilian tips overwhelm the section, including a "spy" who turns out to be rumored a witch by superstitious villagers.
  2. March 22 1944
    Lewis travels through falling ash and volcanic debris to report on the threatened town of San Sebastiano as lava approaches.
  3. March 24 1944
    With the eruption subsiding, Lewis meets Del Giudice, an eccentric folklore writer and expert on San Gennaro and Vesuvius.
  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.
  5. March 29 1944
    More reported miracles sweep the region, including a visionary child and a monk claimed to have flown to rescue a downed pilot.
  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.
  7. June 27 1944
    A colleague describes a revived, medieval-style flagellant procession at Guardia Sanframondi; two more feast stories follow — Nola's Feast of the Lily disrupting army telephone lines, and a trip to Amalfi for the thrice-yearly 'manna' relic of St Andrew.
  8. September 3 1944
    Following Don Ubaldo's death, the section relocates to a remote, archaic hill village with its own strange local fox-cult ritual.
  9. September 23 1944
    Lewis realizes with unease that locals now regard him as a possible *jettatore* (bearer of the evil eye), noting superstitious gestures made in his presence. He then reflects that a year after liberation, still hungry and diseased amid lawless ruins with only the distant promise of corrupt democracy ahead, Neapolitans may reasonably look back on the Mussolini years as a lost paradise by comparison.

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