Here we are, today 19 September the eyes of the Neapolitans (from all over the world) are focused on the Cathedral of San Gennaro, the Neapolitan comfort zone where you continue to believe for millennia (and it will be continued to do it) that everything will be fine if and only if the blood grouped will return at least for a moment to be liquid. Well, again the blood has melted. But what really happens and, above all, why is San Gennaro so revered?
As every year, at 10 o’clock, the archbishop of Naples the Cardinal Battaglia started the ceremony of the prodigious liquefaction of the blood of his patron. This time, however, in a decidedly different way: his first words were immediately addressed to the population of Gaza, a painful silence and then the video interview of a parish priest who operates in those war areas.
Kept in two ampoules in the Chapel of the Treasury of San Gennaro (the highest expression of Baroque art in Naples, which belongs, among other things, not to the Curia but to the city, represented by the ancient institution of the deputation of the treasure, elected in 1601 and still existing), the blood has also comforted the Neapolitans. It is a ritual that the Neapolitans await in particular, because it is in it that all the difficulties and requests of this city converge.
It is a function that is synonymous with belonging, a prodigy with which a love pact with a people scattered all over the world is tightened.
The history of the Saint
Not everyone knows that San Gennaro, today patron of Naples, probably was not born in the Neapolitan city, but in Benevento – of which he was bishop – or, according to other traditions, came from North Africa. Little life is known: the oldest sources, like the Bolognese acts they Vatican acts of the eighth century, are in fact much subsequent to his death and therefore not entirely reliable. What seems certain is his date of birth, on April 21, 272, and that of Martyrdom, which took place in Pozzuoli in 305 during the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian.
The story of the martyrdom has been handed down in different versions. According to the Bolognese actsGennaro went to Pozzuoli with Festo and desire to visit the deacon Sossio, imprisoned by the governor Dragonzio. Arrested in turn, they were condemned to the fairs, but they probably saved themselves thanks to popular favor. The tradition instead tells that the beasts had kneel in front of the saint, an episode also depicted by Artemisia Gentileschi.
The Vatican acts They offer a more miraculous variant: surprised in Nola while preaching, Gennaro was arrested by judge Timoteo and subjected to torture, including the ardent furnace, from which he came out unharmed. Here too he was condemned to the fairs, which were tamed, and finally to beheading. Timothy, blinded, would have regained the sight thanks to a prayer of the saint, bringing thousands of people to conversion, but, despite this, he confirmed the death sentence.
The relics of San Gennaro were initially laid in the Capodimonte catacombs. In 831, during the siege of Naples, they were stolen from Sicone I and transferred to Benevento, to then be moved to the Abbey of Montevergine, where they remained for centuries.
According to tradition, the blood was collected by a woman named Eusebia immediately after beheading. The relics were publicly exposed only in 1305 and the first testimony of the liquefaction dates back to 1389. In 1497 the remains preserved in Montevergine were also brought back to Naples, welcomed in the chapel of the Succorpo del Duomo.
Over the centuries the Neapolitans have repeatedly invoked the protection of their patron in times of difficulty. Already in 1527, between plague and sieges, they symbolically signed a “contract” with him in the presence of a notary and relics. But the most famous episode remains that of the eruption of Vesuvius of 1631: during the procession with the saint’s signs, the blood melted and lava, now close to the city, stopped suddenly.
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Since then the prodigy of the blood has been expected in three moments of the year: on September 19, the day of the feast of San Gennaro; on 16 December, anniversary of the eruption of 1631; And the Saturday preceding the first Sunday of May, when we remember the transfer of the relics to the Capodimonte catacombs.
Is there a scientific explanation of the miracle of San Gennaro?
Over the years several hypotheses have been advanced to explain the liquefaction of the blood, but no certainty. To have a definitive response, a sample should be taken from the content of the ampoule and analyze it with modern laboratory techniques. However, the Church has never allowed to open the reliquary, so the mystery remains.
Some study attempts have been made in the past, in 1902 and 1989, simply observing the light reflected from the liquid without however opening the ampoule. These research has never been published in scientific journals, therefore they have not been officially validated.
The most common hypotheses are two:
- Substance at a low melting point – according to this theory, the heat of the hands or the environment could melt the content, causing the transition from solid to liquid
- Tissatropic mixture – that is, a substance that remains solid if it is not touched, but that becomes fluid when it is agitated, and then returns solid once left to rest
In support of the second hypothesis, in 1991 in the magazine Nature A study conducted by three Cicap researchers (the Italian Committee for the control of statements on pseudosciences) was published. Scholars managed to recreate a red substance in the laboratory with tissotropic properties, using only materials available already in the Middle Ages, the era of the first testimony of the prodigy (1389). They mixed ferric chloride (also present on the slopes of Vesuvius), calcium carbonate. The result was a mixture that, as a firm, appeared solid but that became liquid if shaken.
This experiment shows that already in the fourteenth century it was technically possible to obtain a similar substance, but it remains a hypothesis: without opening the ampoule you can never really know what it contains.
The opposite question then remains: how to explain the times when the blood does not melt? According to the first hypothesis, the temperature may not be high enough to cause merger; According to the second, however, it may simply have not been a sufficient agitation to activate the tissotropic properties of the material.
