Mrs. G. Gretton

Lent observances—Compulsory confession—The sepulchres on Holy Thursday—Procession on Good Friday—Blessing the houses—Joyful celebration of Easter.

In my last chapter, I find I stepped somewhat abruptly from winter to spring, and talked of merry-makings in the country, while in the one immediately preceding it I left the good townspeople of Ancona enjoying their last night of Carnival, with the dreary prospect of a supperless, theatreless Lent before them. The amusements of the so-called gay season had not been sufficiently numerous to render the transition very remarkable to a superficial observer, yet in many little ways the regulations peculiar to this period were felt as a thorn in the flesh, and conveyed with them some mortification to those by whom they were conscientiously carried out. For instance, their dietetic rules were rather peculiar: it was not allowed to make more than one full meal a day, to eat any supper at night, or to take milk above once in the twenty-four hours; on Friday and Saturday of every week, milk was wholly forbidden; besides a number of similar enactments, which depended on the bishop of the diocese, who every Lent issued a fresh table of regulations, modified according to his ideas, or to the actual condition of the country.

In some of the churches, friars or Jesuit fathers, specially summoned for the purpose, delivered a course of sermons, inveighing against the prevailing irreligion and unbelief. But if the preacher's talents were only of an average description, his audience was limited to a few ladies and old women: when, on the contrary, he happened to be distinguished by a flowery and popular style of eloquence, all classes would flock to hear him, numbers of young men amongst the rest, who came in and out, lounged against the columns, talked together in the pauses, stared at their acquaintances, carried on a little flirtation—in fact, conducted themselves much as if they were in the pit of a theatre. In the same way any great funzione, where good music and singing were sure to be heard, never failed to attract the gioventÙ in crowds to the church in which it was celebrated; while the stimulus of a higher motive than mere curiosity, or the employment of an idle hour, never appeared to be felt or even dreamed of. This total absence of religion, or rather of all religious belief, is spreading fast, and, no longer confined to young men of fashion as their exclusive prerogative, is descending to the lower classes of the community, who, discontented and repining, and debarred from all means of enlightenment, look upon the blended temporal and spiritual system of their Government with the same hostility and mistrust.

Towards the close of the Holy Week however the whole population becomes compulsorily devout. The parochial clergy go round to every house in their jurisdiction, taking down the names and ages of the inhabitants, and delivering to all a ticket filled up with their name, requiring them to repair, within a given period, to the parish church, for confession and communion. Any freewill-offering, any spontaneous act of grace in these religious duties, is thus lost; and with the young men especially, prender Pasqua, as it is termed, becomes a most irksome task, which they endeavour to shuffle over, or resort to every expedient and deception to evade altogether. The Government however has always been very strict in enforcing this ordinance, with the political view of maintaining its fast-waning influence through the confessional, going even the length of refusing pontifical subjects their passports, if they require to travel, when it can be proved that they have neglected their Easter duties—an odious abuse of authority, tending to bring religion into contempt.

I remember hearing of the astonishment and indignation of some members of the V—— family, the first year they passed in Ancona, when the priest, having taken the statistics of the household, and ascertained that they professed the Roman Catholic faith, handed to each of them in succession a printed ticket requiring them to conform to this law. In France, they declared, they had never heard of such a measure; and they could not, even before us, forbear from expressing their disgust. It required all their mother's persuasions, and the example of her unquestioning submission to whatever emanated from priestly authority, to stifle the murmurs of the young ladies and enforce their obedience.

On Holy Thursday, after mid-day, an unwonted silence seemed to fall upon the town, unbroken till the same hour on Saturday. No bells were tolled, no matins or vespers rung, no mass celebrated in the churches; while the streets were filled with people hastening to the sepolcri, or sepulchres, of which seven must be visited by the faithful. Each church has its sepolcro, varying in the details, but agreeing as to the general characteristics of the representation. The high-altar is divested of its usual ornaments, in token of mourning; and on the platform immediately before it, surrounded by all the emblems of the Passion, is a figure in wax, of life-size, of the Saviour, as if just removed from the cross. All around and on the steps leading up are a profusion of natural flowers and tapers; and sentinels with arms reversed are stationed at intervals to keep back the crowd.

In some churches more figures are introduced—such as Joseph of Arimathea, the Beloved Apostle, the three Maries; others have a greater display of flowers and wax-lights, but the pervading effect in all is invariably the same. The complete stillness; the ceaseless, noiseless swaying of the crowd, as those who occupy the foremost places, after a few minutes' admiring inspection and a few muttered prayers, quietly give room in their turn to fresh comers; the indiscriminate blending of rich and poor, as the lady in her silken robes kneels on the pavement beside the tattered beggar; the motionless forms of the Austrian soldiers in all the glittering panoply of war, surrounding the marred and blood-stained effigy of the Prince of Peace; the saturnine, matter-of-fact faces of the attendant priests and sacristans, who hover about, re-lighting any taper that is accidentally extinguished, or adjusting any of the arrangements that may be displaced; the air heavy with the scent of flowers mingling with the exhalations of the vaults beneath, where moulder the remains of those who in their day have gazed upon this spectacle, for centuries repeated, for centuries unchanged: all this has struck each stranger in his turn, and is but a feeble transcript of the varied impressions it produces.

On Good Friday there is always a procession through the principal streets of the town, which, without any of the devotional accessories of the sepolcri—the time-worn churches, the subdued light, the hushed voices—cannot fail painfully to impress the English spectator who has not been inured to sights of this description.

By the people it was eagerly looked forward to as a pleasant variety in the monotony of their lives, an opportunity of sauntering about, of looking out of the windows, of nodding to their acquaintances, and furthering some flirtation or intrigue. Any idea of investing the pageant with a religious significance seemed foreign to the minds of the great majority of the assembled throng.

When the muffled drums were heard announcing that the procession was approaching, and a detachment of troops began to line the street under our windows, I remarked a thrill of excitement, but certainly not of awe, as every head was impatiently turned in the direction from whence the torches and banners of the confraternity of Passionisti first came in view. Men of all classes belonged to this campagnia, all similarly dressed in loose robes and cowls of grey linen, which concealed the features, a crown of thorns round the head, and a girdle of knotted cords; the difference of rank being discernible only by the whiter feet of some amongst them, and the evident pain with which they trod the sharp, uneven pavement. I must however pause to observe here, that a bent head and hoary hair would be the general accompaniments to these marks of gentle birth, were the drapery in which they are enshrouded to be suddenly thrown aside.

Next came friars and priests, all walking according to established rule and precedence—Capuchins, Franciscans, Carmelites, Dominicans, Augustinians, carrying lighted tapers and chanting litanies. Following these were more Capuchins, to whom was especially delegated the office of carrying all the objects belonging to the Crucifixion; and thus they passed on, white-bearded, tottering old men, bearing successively an emblem of this day's great sacrifice, profaned by being paraded, like some mummery of old, before the idle crowd, who gazed, and sneered, and talked, indifferent to the awful event thus commemorated. The crown of thorns, the purple robe, the scourge, the nails, the dice with which the soldiers had cast lots, the spear, were all carried slowly along; the sacred form itself, in the utter prostration of death, stretched upon a bier, coming next in view. A few knelt here, not one in twenty though; the rest all listless, unthinking, or unbelieving.

Some paces behind, upon a sort of platform, appeared a huge image of the Madonna, considerably above the size of life, dressed in violet robes, with long brown ringlets, and pierced through with seven daggers—all the spiritualized beauty with which the “blessed among women” should be invested, lost in the vulgarity of this most material representation. This, with the dignitaries and magistrates of the town walking two and two, closed the procession; after which marched more soldiers, those who had been stationed along the streets falling into the ranks, and the band performing a funeral-march—the same the Austrians always play after the interment of any of their comrades.

I have not exaggerated this description. To some enthusiastic poetic minds, to whom such things seem beautiful in the abstract, I know my account will prove distasteful. But thus it always is: a close insight into the countries where these time-honoured traditional ceremonies are still maintained, strips them of the mysterious charm with which, to a foreigner, they might seem to be invested, and accounts for the levity with which they are witnessed by those familiarized to them since their earliest childhood.

As another instance: there was the custom of blessing the houses on Easter Saturday, which I had heard of long before visiting Italy, and imagined must prove equally edifying and impressive. But when I saw a very dirty priest in his alb—I think that is the name—a sort of linen ephod worn over the black gown, attended by a still more dirty little boy carrying holy-water, walking hastily through the house, muttering a few unintelligible words on the threshold of each room, only pausing a little longer in the kitchen to crack a few jokes with the servants, without the least semblance of devotion on his side or of reverence on theirs—and gratefully accepting a few pauls sent out to him by the family—why, I fell from the clouds, and my cherished illusions were dispelled. It seemed almost as hollow as blessing the horses on the 17th of January, the festival of St. Anthony, the patron of animals, which had previously greatly astonished me.

All the post and vetturino horses, all those belonging to private families, were taken on that day, gaily decked out with ribbons, to a square in front of one of the principal churches, where priests, standing on the steps of the portico, sprinkled them with holy-water, and pronounced a formula of benediction. A small gratuity was given for each horse, and in return the donors were presented with a little wax-taper and a small loaf of bread, by which the grooms, rather than the poor quadrupeds, were the gainers. There was a favourite cat in my uncle's establishment—a cat of great size and beauty, and of doglike sagacity—which the servants were in vain desirous he would send to be blessed, though prompted by no other motive than the pleasure of dressing it up, and of joining in the crowd of idlers before the church.

Generally however it would appear as if some vague idea of averting ill-luck, of deprecating some sinister influence, must linger in the hearts of the coachmen and postilions who still adhere to this custom, which is practised by the priests—so Young Italy will tell you—solely to maintain their hold upon the superstitious fears of the lowest ranks of the populace.

But stay—I am wandering from my more immediate subject, although all the church-bells let loose, and ringing their merry peals, proclaim it is noon on Holy Saturday, and that Lent is over! There is something very heart-stirring in this rejoicing: I wish we had the same custom in England to usher in the triumphant glories of the Easter morn. Why it should be anticipated here by twelve hours, and the bells give forth their jubilee, and salvos of artillery be fired at mid-day, instead of midnight, I do not exactly know: I think I have somewhere read an explanation of this usage, of which I retain no clear remembrance, save that it is of very remote antiquity. Be this as it may, a few hours sooner or later are of little import; it is the pleasing impression on which I dwell, and it is one of the customs that, even with my hard matter-of-fact notions about the “good old times,” I should gladly see revived amongst us.

On Easter Sunday, every one who has scraped the wherewith together, puts on new clothes, and dines on roast lamb; baskets of stained eggs are sent about as presents, and children feast on cakes embellished with the figure of the Paschal Lamb. In the week following, many marriages take place, as, except under particular circumstances, weddings are never solemnized in Lent.

Dinner-parties are also frequently given at this season amongst intimate friends; more formal ones sometimes on Easter Monday or Tuesday, by the principal families, to some great personage, the delegate or the bishop, for instance. But throughout all, whether on a social or more ceremonious footing, the same kindly feeling, the same absence of ostentation, invariably prevail. Would that we resembled the Italians in this respect! They literally follow the evangelical precept of asking to their banquets those by whom they cannot be bidden in return. At every dinner-party there are always to be met three or four old gentlemen, friends of the family, neither useful nor ornamental accessories, not distinguished by sprightliness, riches, or good looks. They would be classed as insufferable bores by us, and if asked at all, only grudgingly, to fill up a vacant place; but here, on the contrary, their age and infirmities constitute their title to admission; and unfailingly, whenever a trattamento is given—as any gathering for the purpose of making good cheer is denominated—are these old friends, seen in their accustomed seats at the table, not the least tinge of patronage being mingled with the cordiality of their reception.