Please please me
This statue is in Santa Maria in Trastevere. The hundreds of slips of paper are requests for saintly intervention. Note how the more enterprising supplicants avoided getting their requests lost in the mess at his feet and stuck Post-its on his cassock.
Although I forgot to note the name of the saint, it is almost certainly Saint Anthony. Apparently he is the Patron Saint of Finance and can help you sell your house quickly. You should bury a small statue of him upside down facing your house.
I’m serious! People believe this stuff to work. Before I lived in Rome, I never knew Catholicism was such a fun religion. I mean I only knew the kind of Irish Catholicism of repression and misery (I think the rain had a lot to do with it). The real Roman version is so much more freaky fun. The things they come up with … you’d think they were …
a) crazy
b) on acid
c) completely out of touch with reality.
Back to my photo. I like how it’s slightly over exposed so that the candles at his feet threaten to turn it into an auto de fe.
August 19th, 2005 at 10:22 am
Well, that is certainly nothing to be cheerful about! followed all you links, uuh. Very frightening stuff.
August 19th, 2005 at 10:40 am
Au boulot, toi!
En tot straks :-D
August 19th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
That’s Catholicism for you. Ten per cent submission, ten per cent ambition, eighty per cent superstition.
August 20th, 2005 at 2:50 am
I love what Zinnia said!
And following the link: How nice of them to strangle a penitent before burning him to death. Really thoughtful.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:01 am
OOooh, new look for the site, i like, i like…
who’d be the saint of blogging, dyu think?