26 April - Suffering

Yesterday evening we headed out to enjoy the Liberation Day atmosphere - although it was much quieter than during the day - and to meet with friends.  One cocktail bar and one wine bar later we find ourselves suffering a little this morning.  Now, here is an interesting linguistic fact (or so we were told at the school):  the Italians, who enjoy a drink but do not drink to excess in general, have no word for ‘hangover’.  Consequently, as we are in Italy, we have decided it must have been the oysters….

Tomorrow is Santa Zita day and in the last few days flowers have been appearing around the city (the oval Piazza Anfiteatro currently looks like a garden centre) and the mummified body of Santa Zita has been moved to a position of prominence in the Basilica where she is preserved.  Lorraine had visited yesterday and we went again today to witness the reverential crowds that go there to see her.

On walking into the large church you are immediately confronted with the gold and glass casket in which her body is kept, at head height in the central aisle.  Yesterday the people praying at the wooden altar across the front of the casket were three deep but today there are somewhat fewer.  They cross themselves, they kneel and pray, quietly reciting the prayer to the Saint that is attached at intervals on the top rail of the altar, and then line up to file past the casket.  Some have small bunches of flowers from flower sellers in the church which the brush against the glass as they file past.  Others just lay their hand gently upon the casket.  It is all very deferential but, to my non-Catholic upbringing, somewhat strange to see the apparent awe that people hold for this splendidly dressed, long dead and desiccated grey corpse laid out for all to see.