One of my great-grandmothers came from the town of Ebbly, south of Naples. Her son, my grandfather, grew up in an Italian neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. He used to tell me about the festivals there.
Sometimes, a statue of Mary would be paraded down the street, with hundreds of people following. all carrying candles and singing Italian hymns. I remember wondering how far back that tradition went in the old country. Echoes of ancient Rome are everywhere in Italian folklore and popular religion.
Santa Venere, widely revered in southern Italy, may have originated as the goddess Venus. The shrines of saints and the Madonna at crossroads are successors of the ancient Lares Campitales. The figurines of monks and priests, traditionally believed to protect houses around Naples, are analogues of the penates found in Pompeii's household shrines. None of these, however, are straightforward survivals from antiquity. In the 17th century since Constantine, Christianity has infused every aspect of Italian life.
Even when folk practices or beliefs seem identical to their Roman counterparts, the rationale behind them has changed. They are not survivals, but fossils. The original matter has decayed, leaving only a shape or impression. Or, to use another analogy, they are words in different languages that happen to rhyme. But languages can be related to one another, as Italian is to Latin.
And, although no aspect of ancient Rome survives unchanged in modern Italy, lines of descent can sometimes be traced. Here, I'd like to focus on three examples. The evil eye, funerals, and weddings.
At first glance, a Catholic wedding in modern Italy is profoundly different from anything in ancient Rome. Neither Roman law nor Roman custom required a marriage ceremony. If a man and woman declared their intention of forming a union and then cohabited, they were married in the eyes of the law.
Especially among upper and middle-class families, however, a public ceremony was common. Well in advance of a wedding, a formal betrothal took place, at which the groom gave the bride a pledge of engagement. This was usually a ring placed on the fourth finger of the left hand.
Though traditionally made of iron, gold rings were common by the imperial era. It came to be believed that a nerve or vein connected the left ring finger to the heart. The early Christians maintained the custom of engagement rings, which has endured to this day. Another Roman legacy is the tradition, in Italy and many other countries, that weddings in May are unlucky.
The Romans regarded about a third of the year as unsuitable for marriage ceremonies, usually because the day in question was either ill-omened or associated with a festival. The month of May was stigmatized by the Lemuria. a festival meant to propitiate the restless dead. Widows, however, were free to marry in May, or whenever else they liked.
A Roman bride wore a long white robe with an elaborately tied girdle. Her head was covered by the flammaeum, a gauzy saffron veil. Early Christian brides were similarly dressed, though they preferred purple and white veils.
Many other elements of the Roman wedding ceremony outlasted the transition to Christianity, such as the signing of a marriage contract and the solemn joining of the bride and groom's right hands. Although these vanished over time, the bridal veil survived, as, in the Orthodox Church, did the ancient custom of crowning the bride. After the ceremony, a Roman bride was carried over the threshold of her husband's house. Plutarch and other ancient authors debated the origins of this custom, speculating.
that it commemorated the abduction of the Sabines by Romulus. It's more likely to have begun as a precautionary measure against the evil omen of a bride stumbling as she entered her new home. However it began, the superstition still exists.
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Returning to our topic, one would expect a Catholic funeral in modern Italy to be unlike anything in ancient Rome. To judge from the inscriptions on their tombs, few Romans hoped For a meaningful life after death, Christians, by contrast, believe that the dead are born into a new life with God. In theory, then, a Christian funeral should be a celebration, and this seems to have indeed been the custom in the early church, when the mourners dressed in festive clothes and carried the palm of victory. By late antiquity, however, Christians, like their pagan neighbors, wore black to funerals, a custom that has endured. When a Roman died, his eyes and mouth were closed by a relative.
Trained slaves washed the body, anointed it, and dressed it in fine clothes. A small coin to pay the ferryman over the sticks was often placed in the mouth. The body was then carried to the atrium and laid on a couch, feet toward the door.
Almost all these customs survived until quite recently, before the advent of modern medicine. Most people died at home, and into the 20th century, funeral parlors were seldom involved in the preparations for burial. Like their Roman and early Christian ancestors, Italians closed the eyes of the newly deceased.
Since slave undertakers vanished with the Roman Empire, the tasks of washing and dressing the body were done by family members or local specialists. The body was laid out at home in its Sunday best. In parts of southern Italy, a coin was placed in the mouth.
Every Roman family that could afford it staged a funeral procession. At the head were musicians. Then came hired mourners. Women paid to weep and sing praises of the dead.
Next, slaves freed by the deceased, all wearing the cap of liberty. After them, a line of relatives wearing the wax masks of eminent ancestors. At last...
the body, carried on an elaborate couch. The immediate family walked behind, lamenting. Although the advent of Christianity added a funeral service, the custom of processing to the grave persisted. The freedmen and wax masks disappeared, but professional mourners could be hired in parts of Italy until the 19th century. The torches carried, in Roman funeral processions, survived as candles.
Perhaps the most remarkable Roman artifact in modern Italian folklore is the evil eye. Most Romans seem to have believed that certain people could cause harm with the power of their gaze. Although the means by which this was achieved remained mysterious, Plutarch speculated that maleficent effluvia were shot from the eye.
The underlying cause was understood to be envy, which withers anything it touches. Children were especially susceptible. The livestock could also be harmed. There were several methods of warding off the evil eye. Epitropaic images, such as the gorgon heads often found on temples and armor, were thought to deflect it.
So were paintings or mosaics of eyes being attacked by weapons and poisonous creatures. For personal protection, Romans wore amulets, the most common type. was in the shape of a phallus.
These amulets, known as fasquina, the origin of our word fascinate, were hung around the necks of children, incorporated into the signs of shops, and slung beneath the chariots of triumphing generals. If exposed without the protection of an amulet, a victim of the evil eye could avert disaster with defensive gestures. He could extend his middle finger, the digitus infamous, or wedge his thumb between two fingers. Alternatively, he could spit into a fold of his tunic.
Belief in the evil eye is still widespread in modern Italy. As in antiquity, the evil eye is the envious eye. Babies, new mothers, and young livestock are most vulnerable, but anyone can be harmed. Well into the 20th century, phallic amulets were frequently worn for protection.
More common now are other symbols of male fertility, such as a rooster, dagger, or snake. A remedy for exposure to the evil eye is pretending to spit three times. Hand gestures can also be used. The most famous of these is the Manu Cornuta, a fist with the index and little fingers extended.
You may recognize this as the devil horns of heavy metal, popularized by Ronnie James Dio. But, as Dio explained in interviews, there was nothing new about the sign. He learned it from his Italian grandmother, who used it to ward off the evil eye. The same gesture can be seen on a Roman tombstone dating to the first century BC. It's a long rainbow in the dark from Ronnie James Dio to ancient Rome.
As mentioned earlier, there's no such thing as simple survival of a custom, and apparent parallels can conceal worlds of difference. My great-grandmother, living in Eboli a hundred years ago, was closer than I am to the world of ancient Rome. But she was still very far away.
If today's topic has you thinking about Italy, why not join me in Rome this June, when I'll be leading a tour of the Eternal City. Just before that, I am bringing a group to the spectacular, but seldom visited, ancient sites of Eastern Turkey. You'll find links to both tours in the description.
For the latest episode of Rome in Review, which explores the 1963 film Cleopatra, you can visit my Patreon, also linked below. Finally... Check out my other channels, Totemstone Footnotes, and Scenic Routes of the Past, for more historical content. Thanks for watching.