San Gennaro

Gennaro was born in Benevento around 272 and was bishop of that city. He died in Pozzuoli, beheaded at the Solfatara, on September 19, 305, during the persecution of Diocletian: he had gone to visit the deacon Sossius in prison and was arrested along with him. Up to here it’s the story of a martyr like many others. What came afterward concerns an entire city. His relics came to Naples and the city held on to them tightly; the Cathedral keeps some bones and two ampoules with what tradition holds to be his blood, collected — so the story goes — by a woman named Eusebia. Three times a year — the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, September 19 and December 16 — those ampoules are displayed, and their solid content turns liquid. It has been happening for at least six hundred years, first documented in 1389. It isn’t a dogma, and the Church has never required anyone to believe it. But in Naples, when it liquefies, blank rounds are fired from the Maschio Angioino, and when it’s late, the cathedral falls silent. Then there’s December 16, which has its own reason. In 1631 Vesuvius erupted and the lava was flowing down toward the city; the relics were carried in procession before the volcano, and the flow stopped. Since then, Neapolitans have had a relationship with him that isn’t just devotion: they talk to him, they scold him, they call him *faccia gialla*, “yellow face.” If your name is Gennaro or Gennarina, today is your name day — and it’s the name of Naples.