Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today we celebrate the birth of Mary, one of the three births the Christian calendar celebrates — along with those of Jesus and of the Baptist. The Gospels say nothing about her parents: the story of Joachim and Anne comes from the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal text from the second century. The feast was born in the East and was brought to the West by Pope Sergius I, between 650 and 701. For the Orthodox it is one of the twelve great feasts of the year. The date has a logic to it: nine months after December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In farming tradition, September 8 marks the end of summer and of the harvest, and that’s why it’s the day of a great many village festivals all over Italy. In Naples it’s the night of Piedigrotta. The church of Santa Maria di Piedigrotta, at the foot of the Posillipo hill, has drawn pilgrims since the 1300s; the festival that grew up around it was, for a century and a half, the biggest thing that happened in the city — floats, festive lights, crowds — and that’s where the history of Neapolitan song was made: the Piedigrotta song contest launched *Funiculì funiculà*, *'O sole mio*, *Torna a Surriento*. The Smorfia puts the Madonna at number eight. If your name is Mary, today is your name day.