“Public forms of symbolic expression are not to be despised” wrote Professor Mary Douglas in her 1970 book Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. The citizens of Naples seem to agree - their streets are packed with shrines. I saw the shrines shown here on just one short stretch of a single street.
You could devote a lifetime to photographing all the street shrines Naples contains. One person’s theory is that if you live in the shadow of a volcano you may feel you need to be able to get to a place of prayer extremely fast.
Or maybe the colour and hope a shrine provides gives comfort in the midst of poverty.
Somewhere we read that many at least of the shrines began as lights, as a measure for greater security and easier administration of the town. But some of the residents did not care to have their nighttime activities illuminated and broke the lights. An administrator therefore saw to it that the lights also became shrines, knowing that the populace was too pious, or anyway too superstitious, to damage shrines.
ReplyDeleteYes, I read that somewhere too. I bet it's true. I probably said in the post already but there is also the theory that, when you live near a volcano, you need to be handy to somewhere where you can pray before you are overwhelmed.
DeleteA question often asked - why are there more shrines devoted to Mary than Jesus? I enjoyed the Napoli fan's, inadvertent, celestial Marian, slogan next to one of the shrines...
ReplyDeleteI have read - and it appeals to me - that it doesn't feel so presumptuous or daunting to approach lovely Mary, when her son is so busy. The azzurro bit was great, wasn't it?
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