Saint Januarius, the blood and the pact with the city

Three times a year, in the Cathedral of Naples, thousands of people wait with bated breath for an event that has marked the life of the city for centuries: the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Januarius, San Gennaro. The patron saint stands at the centre of a cult that unites Christian faith, civic identity and popular tradition, and his blood is regarded by many Neapolitans as a kind of barometer of the collective destiny. To understand San Gennaro is to understand an essential part of the city's soul.

The martyr bishop

According to tradition, Januarius was bishop of Benevento and died a martyr during the persecution of Diocletian, in 305, beheaded near the Solfatara of Pozzuoli together with some companions. The earliest sources are scarce, and the events of his life are known mainly through later hagiographic accounts. His remains were long kept in the catacombs of Capodimonte that now bear his name, then moved to Benevento and Montevergine, and finally brought back to Naples at the end of the fifteenth century.

Tradition says that a pious woman named Eusebia collected the martyr's blood in two phials. The story appears in late texts and cannot be verified, but it lies at the root of the cult of the relics still kept in the cathedral, in a silver reliquary guarded with great care.

The prodigy of the blood

The first documented record of the liquefaction dates from 17 August 1389 and is found in a chronicle known as the «Chronicon Siculum». Since then the event has recurred according to a precise calendar: the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, in memory of the translation of the relics; 19 September, the day of the martyrdom; and 16 December, anniversary of the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631, when according to tradition the saint protected the city from the lava.

During the ceremony the archbishop shows the faithful the reliquary with the phials and checks their state. The so-called «relatives of San Gennaro», women who consider themselves bound to the saint by a special tie, recite prayers and invocations in dialect. If the blood melts quickly, the crowd hails it as a good sign; if it is slow, fears spread. The Church speaks of a «prodigy» without officially pronouncing on the nature of the phenomenon, while some chemists have proposed natural explanations. The debate remains open.

The Treasure and the pact with the city

In 1527, while the city was struck by plague and threatened by war, the Neapolitans made a solemn vow: if the saint protected them, they would build him a new chapel. Thus arose the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, in the cathedral, consecrated in 1646 and still administered today by a lay Deputation rather than by the Curia. It is a clear sign of the direct, almost contractual relationship between the saint and the civic community.

The Treasure, the fruit of centuries of donations from kings, popes, nobles and common people, includes extraordinary jewels, such as the mitre studded with precious stones made at the beginning of the eighteenth century and the saint's necklace, enriched over time by successive gifts. San Gennaro does not belong to esotericism but to religious history; yet his cult shows how in Naples faith intertwines with a sense of destiny, with the memory of catastrophes and with a familiar relationship with the supernatural.