You may already know this, but in case you don’t - Italians are, on the whole, extremely superstitious. These superstitions involve some things that may be familiar, but also some rituals that might border on the bizarre if you didn’t know what was going on. While some are being relegated to memory as older generations (the only ones left who know the rituals and prayers) are dying off, some of them are pervasive enough that younger generations live by them as well. Here are just a few of the more well-known ones.
The Evil Eye - This might be the most widespread, and it’s still practiced today. In Italian, it’s “malocchio” which is a sort of combination of the Italian words for bad (male) and eye (occhio). Whereas I might think that giving someone the evil eye means you’re glaring at them, malocchio has more to do with someone looking at or thinking of someone else with envy. The person who is being envied is then at risk of all kinds of bad things, from a lifetime of poverty to death and everything in between, unless the rituals and prayers which drive away malocchio are performed. Of course, not only is the banishing of the malocchio a superstition, the prayers and rituals themselves are also bathed in mystery. The prayers are only known by women, and the circumstances under which you’re allowed to learn or teach them are severely limited. For a nice overview of malocchio, see this post. And for pity’s sake, if you compliment someone’s baby in Italy, say “God bless him/her” afterwards or the baby will be cursed.
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When I first visited Italy in 2001, I’d read a bit about the Capuchin Crypt in Rome and knew I had to see it. The Crypt is a tiny space underneath the Santa Maria della Immacolata Concezione church in which the bones of more than 4,000 Cappuchin monks have been artfully arranged to decorate the walls of several tiny chapels. It’s not as if people died here in order to become three-dimensional wallpaper, however - it’s just that so many people wanted to be buried here (because the soil had originally been brought from Jerusalem, making it very desirable as a final resting place for those who couldn’t make it all the way to the Holy City) that they eventually ran out of space. So what better way to make room than to exhume clean skeletons and use them for decorations, right?
I never would have described myself as a fan of the morbid. I hate horror movies and I cringe during even movie scenes of surgery. But the Cappuchin Crypt fascinated me. The chapels are all along one side of a small hallway, and it’s a dead-end (no pun intended) so you walk all the way to the end and then walk back. Some of the bones are stacked along the walls, some have been propped upright as complete skeletons and dressed with their monks’ robes; but most have been used to create designs on the walls and arched ceilings. According to the official website, each chapel has a name - one is the Crypt of the Skulls (it’s the one with all the skulls, of course) and another is called the Crypt of the Pelvises. I’m no biology whiz, so I’m not sure I would have known they were pelvic bones had the name not given it away. In one of the chapels there is even a little grim reaper overhead (seriously, it feels like the monks had a pretty good sense of humor, doesn’t it?). In the very last chapel is a sign which reads, “As you are, we once were. As we are, you will someday be.” It gives you the chills (in a good way).
Visitor Information
The Cappuchin Crypt (sometimes also spelled Cappuccin Crypt) can be a little hard to find - it’s beneath the Santa Maria della Immacolata Concezione on Via Veneto near Piazza Barberini. It’s open Friday through Wednesday from 9:00am until 12:00 noon and again from 3:00pm until 6:00pm, and it’s closed on Thursdays. There’s no entry fee, but a donation is requested. The postcards are excellent, and a must since you’re not allowed to take pictures. The official website is here.
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Some Italian news for your Sunday:
A Russian ninja who had been terrorizing farmers in the north of Italy has been caught - and it seems we have Robin Hood to thank for his choice of disguises.
Even if they drive cars down staircases in the movies, it’s probably not a good idea to try it in real life. At least the guy who drove down the Spanish Steps has this excuse - he was drunk.
Italy’s new art-guarding robot dog might not be able to chase down and catch thieves, but it can tell when the …
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Some of you may remember a post I wrote about the husband’s and my last trip to Italy, where we stopped outside Bologna to see a Ferrari Formula 1 car on the legendary car maker’s own test track. (That’s the outline of the track to the right - no, it’s not a weird crop circle.) Well, I got a nice note from a reader called Ian not too long ago who had a very similar experience:
My wife and I just returned from 2 weeks in Europe, where she indulged me to go …
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I got a note recently from an Italy Logue reader called Leah asking about my Italy-related reading list:
“My story is that I’m a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, and (after having spent a few years in the real world of cubicles of conference rooms) I’ll be heading to the University of Bologna to study for a Master in International Relations. That starts in November - starting in September, I’ll be doing a month of language training somewhere in the South (perhaps in Calabria) and another month in Florence. …it sounds like you have a reading list going? I’d love to see it, if you don’t mind sharing! I just read Ross King’s ‘Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling’ - it got me fired up, and I’d love to check out some other Italophile books, too.”
Thanks for your note, Leah! Many of the books I’d been reading involved living and working in Italy, rather than soaking up the culture, but it sounds like the practical books would be useful to you as well. So, for you and for any other readers who are interested, here’s the list of the books I’ve either read or had strongly recommended to me:
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When you’re wandering through the ruins of what were once Rome’s grandest buildings in the Roman Forum or trying to imagine what the Colosseum must have been like in its heyday, sometimes it’s hard to see beyond the rubble. A good guide can help, but some people are just more visual learners. For them - and for anyone else who thinks it’s cool (which might be everyone) - now there’s Rome Reborn.
Thanks to long years of hard work by archaeologists, historians and computer experts from around the world, people …
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Most tourists who visit Italy stay in the northern half of the country - they visit Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice and maybe places like the Cinque Terre and Siena. But most people don’t venture to the country’s southern half. You might be surprised to learn that the North-South divide is more than just a tourist’s whim. The invisible barrier that separates northern and southern Italy also in many respects separates the haves from the have-nots - and recent reports say the gap is getting worse.
Unemployment rates tend …
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It’s been awhile since I’ve posted an update on the whole attempt to become expats; partly that was because the husband and I hadn’t really learned anything new, and partly that was because what we eventually learned didn’t make us terribly optimistic. But here’s the latest - as much as I’d like to be reporting something different, it looks like we’ll be staying in the US for at least the foreseeable future.
The husband has been working with an outplacement agency in Milan for a couple of months, but he’s only had a few …
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If you know the places in a city that you want to visit, but don’t know the most efficient route to use to see them all without backtracking on your path or going out of your way, Wayfaring.com might be able to help you out. From Italofile:
Here’s an easy way to use Google Maps to create your own interactive driving routes or walking tours. The website Wayfaring.com has done all the coding for you. All you have to do is locate your points on a map, give them descriptions, and …
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(I was trying to save this until the next time I did a collection of Italian news snippets, but I heard “part two” of the story today and just can’t resist. So, today, you get an Italy Logue two-fer. Enjoy.)
As you may know, President George Bush recently visited Rome, which (as you can imagine) would cause some traffic jams to develop. Security is just that kind of business, and it’s understandable. One Italian senator’s solution to beat the traffic jams, however, raised eyebrows.
Conservative opposition senator Gustavo Selva risked being late for a TV interview on Saturday because streets around the Senate were blocked for Bush’s visit.
So he dialled 118 for an ambulance asking to be rushed to his heart specialist - giving the TV studio’s address.
“I used an old journalist’s trick to get here,” he boasted on live television.
Now, as you might also surmise, the Italian emergency services were not as amused as Selva clearly was by his little trick. Until today, however, I wouldn’t have thought the stunt would have cost him anything more than a little bad publicity and maybe a court appearance (where charges would eventually be dismissed). But today, I read this - oh, yes, it gets better!:
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