Caring for Naples

A curious programme on the World Service on Friday reminded us that although we’re now embarking on a new kind of technological revolution, dominated by twittering, downloading, waking up to John Humphrys not in BH but Karachi, we’ve not quite lost our connection with the mindset of the Middle Ages. On Blood and Lava Malcolm Billings joined the Procession of San Gennaro in Naples. It’s an annual festivity, when the ornate silver bust of the saint and his Holy Blood, in two sealed glass bottles, is carried from the cathedral to the monastery of Santa Chiara. Once there it is supposed magically to transform itself from a dried powder into a living liquid; if it doesn’t, then Naples is doomed — either from the criminal activities of the Camorra, the local mafia, or the fiery eruptions of nearby Vesuvius.

The bottles of blood are kept in the saint’s chapel in the cathedral, along with several pottery storage jars filled to overflowing with the bones of the Early Christian priest, who was persecuted by the Emperor Diocletian in 305 AD.