Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
homes everywhere. Around eight million pilgrims visit his shrine every year. Three times
a year, thousands cram into Naples' Duomo to witness their patron saint San Gennaro's
blood miraculously liquefy in the phial that contains it. When the blood liquefies, the city
is considered safe from disaster. Another one of Naples' holy helpers is Giuseppe Moscati
(1880-1927), a doctor who dedicated his life to serving the city's poor. According to the
faithful, the medic continues to heal from up above; a dedicated chapel inside the city's
Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo heaves with
ex-voti
(including golden syringes) offered in thanks
for miraculous recoveries.
And yet, the line between the sacred and the profane remains a fine one in the south. In
Christ Stopped at Eboli,
his book about his stay in rural Basilicata in the 1930s, writer-
painter-doctor Carlo Levi wrote: 'The air over this desolate land and among the peasant
huts is filled with spirits. Not all of them are mischievous and capricious gnomes or evil
demons. There are also good spirits in the guise of guardian angels.'
While the mystical, half-pagan world Levi describes may no longer be recognisable,
ancient pagan influences live on in daily southern life. Here, curse-deterring amulets are
as plentiful as crucifix pendants, the most famous of which is the iconic, horn-shaped
corno
. Adorning everything from necklines to rear-view mirrors, this lucky charm's evil-
busting powers are said to lie in its representation of the bull and its sexual vigour. A
rarer, but by no means extinct, custom is that of Naples' 'o Scartellat. Usually an elderly
man, he'll occasionally be spotted him burning incense through the city's older neighbour-
hoods, clearing the streets of bad vibes and inviting good fortune. The title itself is
Neapolitan for 'hunchback', as the task was once the domain of posture-challenged fig-
ures. According to Neapolitan lore, touching a hunchback's hump brings good
luck…which beats some of the other options, among them stepping in dog poop and hav-
ing wine spilt on you accidentally.
Italy's culture of corruption and
calcio
(football) is captured in
The Dark Heart of Italy,
in which English ex-
pat author Tobias Jones wryly observes, 'Footballers or referees are forgiven nothing; politicians are for-
given everything'.
