The Feast of San Gennaro today

The rite of the liquefaction of the blood takes place today in the beautiful Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro (Saint Janarius): a veritable Baroque treasure trove. Of the “machines” and other staged scenes which were in vogue in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, there remains little or nothing. From the early decades of the nineteenth century, in fact, the extra-liturgical apparatuses and ephemeral elements have been dwindling. Today then, the Feast of San Gennaro has lost its most important Baroque connotations. At centre stage of the event are the people, who await the liquefaction of the blood and the officiating priest, in whose hands the coveted miracle takes place. The Church of Naples, contrary to what happened in other parts of southern Italy, has managed to bring the cult of San Gennaro to the margins of the liturgy, confining the role of faithful and the city authorities to that of spectators. Still, in waiting for the miracle, during the lapse in time between the exposition of the ampoule and the liquefaction of the blood, the city once again takes on a leading role: a role which, in a not too distant past, it performed in an extra-liturgical space populated by inventions and artistic marvels.