Saint Patricia of Naples

Patron saint performs a miracle every week

The Chapel of Saint Patricia inside the Church of
San Gregorio Armeno in the centre of Naples

The feast day of Saint Patricia is celebrated every year in Naples on this day.

The saint, who is also sometimes referred to as Patricia of Constantinople, is one of a long list of patron saints of Naples.

She is less well known than San Gennaro, also a patron saint of the city, who attracts crowds to Naples Cathedral three times a year to witness the miracle of a small sample of his blood turning to liquid.

But Saint Patricia’s blood, which is kept in the Church of San Gregorio Armeno, is said to undergo the same miraculous transformation every Tuesday morning as well as on August 25 each year - her feast day - which was believed to be the day she died in 665 AD.

Saint Patricia was a noble woman, who may have been descended from St Constantine the Great.

Saint Patricia

She was a devout virgin and travelled to Rome to become a nun in order to escape an arranged marriage.  She received the veil – symbolising her acceptance into the monastic community – from Pope Liberius.

When her wealthy father died, she returned to Constantinople and, renouncing any claim to the imperial crown, distributed her wealth among the poor.

She was planning to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but was shipwrecked after a terrible storm on to a small island off the coast of Naples, which is now the site of Castel dell’Ovo.

Patricia died shortly afterwards from disease, but according to a legend, a man pulled out one of her teeth after her death, which caused her body to haemorrhage. Her devoted followers collected the blood, which they preserved.

Patricia’s remains were transferred in the 19th century to the monastery of San Gregorio Armeno in Naples.

Every Tuesday morning, Saint Patricia’s blood liquefies after the service at the Church of San Gregorio, as it does on August 25, her feast day.

Patricia’s remains lie inside a coffin at a side altar in the church, but during Tuesday mass, a vial of her blood is hung from the main altar covered with a cloth. Worshippers queue up to kiss the receptacle containing the blood, which is said to turn into a dark liquid.

San Gennaro performs his miracle at the Duomo in Naples three times a year but attracts a lot more publicity.

Via San Gregorio Armeno is famous for
its stalls selling hand-made presepi

Travel tip:

The Church of San Gregorio Armeno, where Saint Patricia’s remains are kept, is in Via San Gregorio Armeno, a street just south of Via dei Tribunali that is well-known for its stalls of hand-made presepi - Christmas crib scenes - which are for sale all the year round. Construction of the Baroque Church began in the 16th century using designs by Giovanni Battista Cavagni, and much of the decoration was done by Luca Giordano, in particular the cupola, which is painted with the Glory of San Gregorio.  The cloister, added in 1580, has in its centre a marble fountain, decorated with dolphins and other marine creatures, with the statues of Christ and the Samaritan Woman by Matteo Bottiglieri.

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The imposing facade of the Duomo di Napoli,
which contains the relics of San Gennaro
 

Travel tip:

The Duomo in Naples, in Via Duomo, off Via dei Tribunali, was built over the ruins of two earlier Christian churches for Charles I of Anjou at the end of the 13th century. One of the main attractions inside is the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, which contains many precious works of art, including frescoes by Domenichino and Giovanni Lanfranco, altarpieces by Domenichino, Massimo Stanzione and Jusepe Ribera, the rich high altar by Francesco Solimena. The Duomo is also sometimes referred to as Cattedrale di San Gennaro. In addition to the remains of San Gennaro, the cathedral is also the burial place of Pope Innocent IV and of Charles I of Naples and Sicily. It is open to the public from 8.30am to 1.30pm and 2.30pm to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 8.30pm to 1.30pm and 4.30pm to 7.30pm on Sundays.

More reading:

The worldwide celebrations of the Festival of San Gennaro

How Catania hails its patron saint, Agatha of Sicily

Madonna della Salute and Venice's deliverance from plague

Also on this day:

79: Eruption of Vesuvius

1509: The birth of extravagant cardinal Ippolito II d'Este

1609: Galileo demonstrates potential of telescope

1691: The birth of architect Alessandro Galilei

1829: The birth of musician Carlo Eduardo Acton

(Picure credits: Chapel of Saint Patricia by Giuseppe Guida via Wikimedia Commons)

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Parmigianino - Mannerist painter

Artist from Parma left outstanding legacy

Parmigianino's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, with
which he announced himself in Rome in 1524 

The artist Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola – better known as Parmigianino – died on this day in 1540 in Casalmaggiore, a town on the Po river south-east of Cremona in Lombardy.

Sometimes known as Francesco Mazzola, he was was only 37 years old when he passed away but had nonetheless made sufficient impact with his work to be regarded as an important influence on the period that followed the High Renaissance era of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Known for the refined sensuality of his paintings, Parmigianino – literally ‘the little one from Parma’ – was one of the first generation of Mannerist painters, whose figures exuded elegance and sophistication by the subtle exaggeration of qualities associated with ideal beauty.

Parmigianino is also thought to have been one of the first to develop printmaking using the technique known as etching and through this medium his work was copied, and circulated to many artistic schools in Italy and other countries in northern Europe, where it could be studied and admired.

The church of San Giovanni Evangelista in
Parma, where Parmigianino did early work

Parmigianino’s figures would often have noticeably long and slender limbs and strike elegant poses. He is most famously associated with the Madonna dal collo lungo – Madonna with the Long Neck – which portrays a tall Virgin Mary with long, slender fingers, long, narrow feet and a swan-like neck, cradling a particularly large baby Jesus watched over by a group of lithe and graceful angels.

He is also remembered for The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, for his fresco series Legend of Diana and Actaeon, executed while he was living in Parma, for his Vision of St Jerome, which he painted in Rome, and for the Madonna with St Margaret and Other Saints that he worked on in Bologna after leaving Rome to escape the sacking of the city by German troops loyal to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.

Parmigianino was born, as the name suggests, in Parma, in 1503, into a large family. His father died when he was two and he was brought up by two uncles, Michele and Pier Ilario, who were both established artists.

His uncles saw his talent at a young age and he would help them on local commissions.  His early influence was said to be Antonio Allegri – otherwise known as Correggio, the foremost painter of the Parma school during the Renaissance, with whom he likely worked at the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, in Parma, where there are frescoes attributed to Parmigianino.

Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long
Neck highlights his exaggerated style

In common with many young artists of his era and earlier, he moved to Rome in 1524, seeking fame and inspiration by working in the city of so many great masters, where he could study the works of Raphael and Michelangelo among others. He took with him his brilliantly imaginative Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, which he presented to the Papal court, after which Giorgio Vasari, who is recognised as art’s first historian, noted that he was hailed as 'Raphael reborn'.

Parmigianino and Pier Ilario, along with Maria Bufalina from Città di Castello, collaborated on a project at the church of San Salvatore in Lauro that included an altarpiece of the Vision of Saint Jerome, now on show at the National Gallery in London.

His time in Rome was cut short when the city was destroyed by Charles V’s imperial army in 1527.

Initially, he went to Bologna, where he stayed for almost three years. His works during that time included the Madonna and Child with Saints, which is kept now by the Pinacoteca in Bologna and the Madonna with Saint Zachariah, which is in the Uffizi in Florence.

By 1530 he was back in Parma, where he was paid an advance to produce two altarpieces, depicting Saint Joseph and Saint John the Baptist, for the unfinished church of Santa Maria della Steccata.

He painted the Madonna with the Long Neck after being commissioned by the noblewoman Elena Baiardi to decorate her family chapel in the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Parma.

For all he was celebrated at his peak, however, Parmigianino was to end his life somewhat in disgrace.

Distracted, it is thought, by his obsession with etching and printmaking techniques, he neglected his commission with the church of Santa Maria della Staccata and was eventually imprisoned for two months for breach of contract and replaced with Giulio Romano.

The monument to Parmigianino in Parma

Released on bail, he took refuge in Casalmaggiore, where he died of a fever. Increasingly eccentric, he was said to have been buried in the church of the Servite Friars naked and with a cross made in cypress wood placed on his chest.

Many Venetian artists, including Jacopo Bassano and Paolo Veronese, are said to have been strongly influenced by the emotional and dramatic qualities in Parmigianino’s work. 

Travel tip:

Despite the unhappy end to his relationship with what is now the Basilica of Santa Maria della Steccata, Parmigianino’s status as one of Parma’s most famous sons is celebrated with a monument immediately in front of the church, in Piazza della Steccata, executed by the sculptor Giovanni Chierici and inaugurated in 1879. The monument consists of a fountain and a statue.

Piazza Garibaldi in Casalmaggiore, looking
towards Palazzo Comunale 

Travel tip:

Casalmaggiore sits alongside the Po river about 42km (26 miles) south-east from Cremona. It is an attractive town with a lively central square, the Piazza Garibaldi, where there is a weekly market every Saturday and regular outdoor events. Most of the town’s main sights are in the vicinity of the square, including the imposing castellated Palazzo Comunale – the Town Hall – built in 1788, and the Estense tower. Look out also for the Diotti or Bijou Museum, in the basement of the former Collegio Santa Croce, which displays jewellery, ornaments and accessories made in local factories in the late 19^th century.

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Roberto Assagioli – psychiatrist

Harsh imprisonment sparked new psychiatric theories

Roberto Assagioli, the pioneering psychiatrist who founded the science of psychosynthesis, died on this day in 1974 in Capolona in the province of Arezzo in Tuscany.

Roberto Assagioli was the pioneer of
a holistic approach to psychiatry

His innovative psychological movement, which emphasised the possibility of progressive integration, or synthesis, of the personality, aimed at finding inner peace and harmony. It is still admired and is being developed by therapists and psychologists today.

Assagioli explained his ideas in four books - two published posthumously - and the many different pamphlets he wrote during his lifetime.

In 1940 the psychiatrist had to spend 27 days in solitary confinement in prison, having been arrested by Mussolini’s Fascist government for praying for peace and encouraging others to join him. He later claimed this experience helped him make his psychological discovery.

Assagioli was born under the name of Roberto Marco Grego in 1888 into a middle-class, Jewish background in Venice.

His father died when he was two years old and his mother remarried quickly to Alessandro Emanuele Assagioli. As a young child Roberto was exposed to art and music and learnt many different languages – creative inspiration which is believed to have helped his work in psychosynthesis.

When he was 18, Assagioli began to travel, and while in Russia he learnt about social systems and politics.

Assagioli as a young man

Assagioli received his first degree in neurology and psychiatry at Istituto di Studii Superiori Pratici di Perfezionamento in Florence in 1910. Then he began writing articles that criticised psychoanalysis, arguing for a more holistic approach.

After training in psychiatry at a hospital in Zurich, he opened the first psychoanalytic hospital in Italy, but felt unsatisfied with this field of psychiatry.

He married Nella Ciapetti in 1922 and they had a son, Ilario.

After being released from his solitary cell in Regina Coeli prison in 1940, he returned to his family, but later in the war their farm was destroyed and they had to go into hiding in the mountains above Arezzo.

Their son, Ilario, died at the age of 28 from lung disease, thought to have been caused by the harsh living conditions he experienced during the war.

The cover of Assagioli's second book,
published a year before he died.

After the war, Assagioli returned to his work on psychosynthesis, preferring a spiritual and holistic approach to psychology.

He was inspired by Freud and Jung and felt that love, wisdom and creativity were important components in psychoanalysis.

Assagioli corresponded with Freud but they never had the chance to meet.

He gave much of the credit for his inspiration for psychosynthesis to his solitary confinement for nearly four weeks in 1940.

He said he used his time in prison to exercise his mental will by meditating daily because he had realised he was able to change his punishment into an opportunity to investigate his inner self.

Assagioli died on August 23, 1974 at the age of 86 from unknown causes.

Since his death, psychosynthesis has continued to be embraced as a comprehensive psychological approach for finding inner peace and harmony.

The Institute of Psychosynthesis has its headquarters
on the northern outside of Florence

Travel tip:

Roberto Assagioli’s former home in Via San Domenico, on the northern outskirts of Florence on the way to Fiesole, is now the headquarters of the Institute of Psychosynthesis, where conferences about the science are regularly held. Although Assagioli wrote just two books about his ideas, the Institute houses a rich archive of documents that includes a large quantity of hand-written material by him.

The bridge across the Arno into Capolona

Travel tip

Capolona, where Assagioli was living when he died, is a small town near Arezzo in Tuscany, located on the right bank of the River Arno. It is referred to as the gateway to the Casentino area, which is rich in castles, churches and old bridges. A few kilometres away to the north lies Caprese Michelangelo, the small village where the great artist Michelangelo was born.

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History’s first air raid

Balloon bombs dropped on Venice

Luigi Querena's dramatic painting of the blazing Church of San
Geremia on the Grand Canal during the Austrian bombardment 

Venice suffered the first successful air raid in the history of warfare on this day in 1849.

It came six months after Austria had defeated the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the First Italian War of Independence as the Austrians sought to regain control of Venice, where the revolutionary leader Daniele Manin had established the Republic of San Marco.

The city, over which Manin’s supporters had seized control in March 1848, was under siege by the Austrians, whose victory over the Piedmontese army in March 1849 had enabled them to concentrate more resources on defeating the Venetians.

They had regained much of the mainland territory of Manin’s republic towards the end of 1848 and were now closing in on the city itself, having decided that cutting off resources while periodically bombarding the city from the sea would bring Venice’s capitulation.

An artist's impression of how the
balloon bombs may have looked

However, because of the shallow lagoons and the strength of Venice’s coastal defences, there were still parts of the city that were out of the range of the Austrian artillery.

It was at this point that one of Austrian commander Josef von Radetzky’s artillery officers, Lieutenant Franz von Uchatius, came up with the unlikely idea of attaching bombs to unmanned balloons and letting the wind carry them into Venice.

He devised a crude timing device using charcoal and greased cotton thread that would release the bomb at the moment he calculated it would be over the city.

Of course, he had no control over the speed or direction of the wind and when a first attempt was made in July 1849 it failed miserably, none of the balloons reaching their target and some drifting back towards where they were launched, exploding over the Austrian forces.

Undeterred, the Austrians tried again on August 22, launching an estimated 200 balloons, each carrying more than 14kg (30lbs) of explosives.  This time a number of them hit their target, although the damaged they caused was minimal.

Daniele Manin led the overthrow of the
Austrians in Venice in 1848

Nonetheless, it signalled the arrival of a new dimension to warfare, raising the possibility that civilian populations well behind the front lines of their armies could become targets for attack.  To the vocabulary of warfare could now be added the ‘air raid’.

In fact, it was Italian forces that would launch the first proper ‘air raid’ in history, some 62 years later in 1911, when bombs were dropped from an Italian aeroplane over a village near Tripoli in Libya, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

As it happens, the Republic of San Marco fell only two days after the 1849 balloon attack, although the two events were almost certainly unconnected.  Venice was already on its knees, with stocks of food and ammunition exhausted, and Manin had negotiated a honourable surrender than would see himself and other leaders spared their lives and liberty on condition that they leave Venice and go into exile.

The beautiful Oratory of the Crucifix in Chiesa di San Polo
lined with paintings by Giandomenico Tiepolo

Travel tip:

Daniele Manin’s birthplace in Venice was in the San Polo sestiere – district – of which the main public space is the vast Campo San Polo, the second largest square in Venice after San Marco and much quieter, at least in terms of tourist activity, and some would say a much more comfortable place to experience an authentic Venice, with bars frequented as much by local people going about their business as visitors.  In any other city the 15^th century Gothic Chiesa di San Polo would be the main attraction, featuring an interior beautifully restored by David Rossi in the early 19^th century and featuring paintings by Tintoretto, Jacopo Guarana, Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo, Palma il Giovane and Paolo Veronese.

Campo Manin in San Marco, featuring the statue of Manin

Travel tip:

Manin’s main residence in adult life was a house on the Rio de l’Barcaroli canal in the San Marco sestiere facing what used to be Campo San Pernian, now renamed Campo Manin, through which many visitors pass each day between Teatro la Fenice with Teatro Goldoni. In the centre of this square is a bronze statue of Manin, sculpted by Luigi Borro and erected in 1875, with a bronze winged lion of Venice resting at the foot of the plinth. 

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