Since I last blogged I went for a very sunny and lovely weekend away in Napoli.
One of the things that struck me was the proliferation of these streetside shrines to Jesus, the Madonna (that's the mother of god...shrines to the singer Madonna would be most welcome though, maybe I'll set one up myself) or any of the huge number of saints popular in the Catholic church. I love the mysticism of Italian Catholicism - to me it seems so exotic and so strangely incoherent in a 21st century European country.
My friend who came to Napoli with me kept commenting on my insistence that we visit so many churches. Being a bit of a Lonely Planet hog, it was always me choosing our route:
"where are we going now?"
"well, we're heading towards the sea, but before we get there it says there's a medieval church down this side street. Then there's another church with a Caravaggio painting and another with the ruins of a ancient Greco-Roman marketplace underneath the crypt which sounds interesting..."
"For someone who claims not to believe in God you really love churches, don't you?!"
What can I say? they're such fascinating cultural documents, and they contain so much artwork and history. Plus, as I pointed out in my defence, if you don't visit churches on holiday in an Italian city, what DO you do?! I think possibly my favourite was this church with a whole extra chapel and tiny museum dedicated to a man who was only made Saint in the 1990s by John Paul II. He was a doctor who lived in Napoli helping and treating the poor for free, and became a local celebrity. The church was full of pictures and prayers sent to him by the many people he helped during his life.
Some of the other streetside shrines were more cryptic, though, like this skull. A bronze skull sculpture, strung with rosary beads and a white rose...what's the symbolism? we stumbled upon it late one night while walking home through the centro storico, and it was pretty creepy in the dark, eerily quiet via Tribunale.
1 comment:
I love churches too, yuo're right they're amazing documents of history in many ways, from art and religious and moral beliefs to architecture, giving clues to the different origins of people in the area at the time. I saw one church in paloma that was a mix of muslim settlors and christians in the area at the time. That was strange.
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