More on St Agatha

After posting yesterday's piece on St Agatha I had a look on Google.  There are thousands of sites.  I narrowed the range by putting in history but still got far too many so I opened the first one up which was St Agatha's parish church in NSW, Australia.  They had a very brief history that told me that Quintianus was a Roman senator and that St Agatha was martyred around 251AD during the persecution of Christians at the time of Emperor Decius.  This site seemed to be aimed at young people and St Agatha was held up as a role model for saying no to sex before marriage and also for sticking by your faith commitment.

I followed up by searching for Quintianus and strangely I got an article on Quintinus and Marsaxlokk!  It seems that early historians picked up on a history by Quintinus suggesting that there was a temple to Hercules at Tas-Silg (see my previous post) near Marsaxlokk.  This idea was perpetuated and sometimes included the temple site at Birzebuggia even suggesting that the two were linked.  More recent explorations suggest that neither of these sites was dedicated to Hercules and the Tas-Silg site was actually a temple to Isis.  So I went looking for Quintianus and found something else about my home town!

Another site that came up for Quintianus was a Catholic forum site.  Here the story of St Agatha is written in old biblical language and added a few more details to the framework I have gleaned so far.  It seems that when the "lascivious advances" of senator Quintianus were rejected for the first time, he packed Agatha off to a house of prostitution run by Aphrodisia and her nine daughters.  They worked very hard on trying to persuade Agatha that if she took on the senator she would have a life of luxury and comfort.  Of course St Agatha chose to be a cult figure for the next two thousand years rather than become a housewife for a lifetime.  So Quintianus proceeded with the big stick side of his proposition.

The other thing I found out on the religious saints site was that the saint who visited Agatha in her cell after her breasts were cut off was St Peter and miraculously, after he had left having been told by Agatha that she didn't want anyone but the lord to heal her wounds, "her paps were restored."  It also seems that when Agatha was being burnt, Etna started erupting and her veil was used to stop the lava destroying the town.

I took the picture that heads the post on the evening of the third day of St Agatha's feast.  I walked down via Etnea before it got dark and enjoyed watching the candle bearers preparing for the final procession.  University square was the best spot for this.  Most of the candle bearers were men, apart from the two women that I snapped.  There is quite a knack to getting the massive candles going and the bearers carry knives to pare the wax and keep the wicks trimmed.  The padding is to cushion the shoulder once they get moving and the flaming end sticks out behind them so the hot wax drips to the ground.  The whole of the processional route had been covered in sawdust but it still looked to me like a highly risky operation!

As the time for the procession drew closer more and more candle bearers came into the square and got their candles going along the route.  As the crowd was also growing it became more and more difficult for them to get through with the heavy load on their shoulder and I began to feel overwhelmed so I escaped from the square and used some backroads to get into piazza duomo where I slipped into the cathedral.  There was a service going on and it was packed but people were wandering in and out.  One little girl had a massive Minnie Mouse balloon.

When I came out, I threaded my way through the crowded piazza and went through the gate that leads down to the river where there were market stalls set up.  As I came through the gate, something  happened in one section of the market crowd and there was a sudden surge of people away from whatever it was.  I never found out but it worried me enough to turn round and make my way back.  I used the back roads again to make my way further down via Etnea where I tried to establish a place on a corner from where I thought I could watch the parade.

As it got darker, the crowd got larger and larger and it became more and more difficult for me to avoid being elbowed or having a cigarette poked in my face.  The whistles of the candelore heralded the start of the procession but I only managed to hang on until they had reached my corner and then I gave up.  It was no longer fun!  I squeezed out of the crowd and headed off through the back roads to my hotel.  The procession goes on all night but I was in bed before the end of it had left the cathedral!

St Agatha

The paintings and statues depict St Agatha as beautiful and curvaceous with blonde hair and blue eyes.  She is always serene or gazing ecstatically heavenward even when torturers are standing by waving their enormous nut crackers having just cut off her breast.  The only depiction I've seen of her as distressed and powerless is in the dungeons in Mdina, Malta where the life-size model shows her bound and screaming.  Yet even after three days of the feast of St Agatha in Catania, I still feel I haven't moved beyond the cult of St Agatha.

The rituals of the three day feast are amazing.  The streets of Catania are thronged with residents and visitors, the processional routes are decorated with lights and banners, the churches with statues, candles and flowers.  There are fireworks every night and the procession goes on a different route around the city on each of the three days.  It is likely that people who know what to expect and what they want to do can organise themselves to be in a good place at a particular time so that they can engage without having to battle the huge crowd.  I didn't have this luxury so I found that what I enjoyed most was when I stumbled on the procession by chance and when I walked around the route calling in on the churches during non-processional times.

The first day of the feast, February 3rd, I wandered through the street markets towards Via Etnea and caught the eleven candelore for the first time.  The candelore are elaborate candle-shaped constructions carried by a team of six to twelve burly men who wear sacking protection on their heads as they shoulder the carrying poles.  The candelore represent the guilds including floriculturalists, fishmongers, greengrocers, butchers, makers of pasta, grocers, bakers and vintners.  They are so heavy that the bearers can only move them for short distances at a time and then they stop for a while so everyone in the crowd can walk around and look at them.  When it's time to move on, someone blows a whistle so everyone gets out of the way as the bearers bend their knees and take the strain.

I learnt later that this first glimpse was part of the solemn Midday procession when civil, military and religious authorities follow the procession from the church of St Agatha down via Etnea to the Cathedral for "the offering of wax."  Although I saw the candelore often over the next two days, this was the only time I saw the costumed trumpeters and mace bearers with suited dignitaries wearing gongs around their necks.  There were also white horses and carriages with liveried footmen.

On the afternoon of that first day, we went on the excursion to Acireale so missed the St Agatha's International Cross-country race that takes place from 3.00pm through the old and new streets of the town centre.  But after dinner in the evening I managed to catch the fireworks display as I walked down via Etnea towards the piazza Duomo to enjoy the lights.

On February 4th, the procession takes all day to go on the "outside tour"around the outer ring road of the town taking the candelore past the port area and across to piazza Risorgimento and piazza Palestro.  We went on our bus tour to Giarre that day which I will write about in my next post.  In the morning I wandered the streets, refound Teatro Bellini with the poster that heads my last post and caught the candelore again as they came down via Umberto.

Day three, February 5th, is the big day when the procession goes up and down via Etnea stopping at all the places that are significant for St Agatha.  We had no bus trips scheduled today and were organised to have lunch rather than dinner at the hotel so that we could stay in town in the evening.  By this time I had found my guide in English with a street map of the processional route and I decided I would spend the morning walking the route and visiting the places on the way.  

From our hotel on via XX Settembre it is a short walk to piazza Cavour where Chiesa di Sant'Agata al Borgo is located.  In the early days, this square was on the outskirts of the town.  The church is devoted to St Agatha and there was a statue of her at the front with flowers and candles.  When I slipped in, there were several people sitting quietly and I also sat down.  Several people went and stood in front of the statue from time to time and offered flowers or put something in the offering box.  A nun spent some time praying and when a young mother with her daughter went up, the nun showed the little girl how to cross herself correctly.

From piazza Cavour, I walked down via Etnea to Chiesa di Sant'Agata alla Fornace in piazza Stesicoro.  It was here that St Agatha was finally martyred by fire after being held in prison and mutilated.  The story is that it was in piazza Stesicoro that Agatha first encountered the flattery of one Quinziano, who I think I heard somewhere else was from Rome but I have no idea what his position was.  Agatha resisted and somehow Quinziano was able to torture, imprison and burn her.

There is a cluster of significant sites around piazza Stesicoro each claiming an aspect of St Agatha's story.  Two places, the church of Santa Maria dell'Annunziata and also Sant'Agata la Vetere, claim to be the first resting place of St Agatha's first sepulchre as they were both cemetery areas at that time.  Also in this square is the church of Madonna del Carmelo, an important sanctuary.

Nearby, in piazza della Borsa, is the sanctuary of Sant'Agata al Carcere where St Agatha was imprisoned.  A few people went into the tiny underground space, squeezed past an old timber reliquary, through another door and into what is supposed to be the actual cell with a barred window and an elaborate moorish lamp hanging outside.  There is also the footstep of St Agatha miraculously imprinted on a lava slab when she tried to defend herself from her torturers but somehow I missed this.  This is where she had her breast cut off and somewhere I saw a painting of a male saint visiting her in this prison to bring her some comfort after the torture.

The last stop in this cluster of holy places is the church of Sant'Agata la Vetere.  This was the first cathedral in Catania and St Agatha's burial place.  It is too small now to be used in the processions but was significant up until 1094 when the present cathedral site was chosen by the Normans.

After dropping in to all of these sites and spending a few moments sitting and contemplating the steady stream of other visitors, the morning had disappeared so I made my way back through the market squares to the hotel for lunch.  I'll write briefly about the evening procession in my next post.

Catania and Malta

By the third day of wandering the streets of Catania checking out bookshops along the way I managed to track down a S. Agata Guida alla Festa that had English notes and also a DVD about St Agatha that promises English.  But there were no books in English and I think I need that to move beneath the beatific and horrific in the story of St Agatha.  I even called in to the Biblioteca regionale universitario di Catania and asked if they had anything in English on the saint.  They didn't but the woman on the front desk invited me to go in and browse.

I had a great morning wandering down the dusty stacks where I picked up two interesting items about Malta.  The first was in a large volume on contemporary architects where I learnt that Renzo Piano, the Italian architect who has been invited to submit designs for the old Opera House site and the City gate in Valletta, is concerned about the reality of building as well as with design.  I found this re-assuring.

I also found a very useful potted history of Malta that suggested that Malta has been a powerful indicator of the rise and fall of colonial powers.  She has often been in the possession of nations as they emerge into power and of course has been the battleground of nations struggling for supremacy.  So Malta's current status as an independent republic and a member of EU carries in its history a larger picture than the rocks that make up the small island.

Today, this small island continues cold and damp but the sun has come out to start drying things out.  The prediction is that the temperature will continue to drop to 2 degrees by Monday night and then will start to rise.  I shall be happy to feel some more warmth in my bones!  I've freed up the weekend to catch up with my writing but I must get out moving in the sun as well.  

My next post will focus on St Agatha.  The photo is a poster of St Agatha in prison.  It is outside the Teatro Bellini.  Last time I was in Catania, Carol and I went on a guided tour of this lovely baroque theatre.  I wanted to go to a performance here this time but couldn't make the only show that was on - Macbeth in Italian!

Acireale

More padlocks in Acireale!  These are in the Villa Belvedere gardens along with the gold fish.  There is also a calendar date garden here, 3 February 2009.  How do they manage to change these gardens every day?

This is a brief post about our second day visit to Acireale.  In my next post I'll get on to Catania and St Agatha.  Acireale is another of the towns around Etna.  We just missed the carnival there which is on this week but the decorations were already up in the streets and I walked the triangular route of the procession.

The bus dropped us off at Villa Belvedere gardens which is a great starting point with views out over the sea and adjacent to a neatly manicured Tuscan landscape.  There is also a dramatic statue of a woman appealing heavenwards over the prone body of a man with a large rock on his chest. 

Acireale has the usual Piazza Duomo as well as Piazzas Garibaldi and Cappuccini and Europa.  I also noticed some nicely laid out vegetable shops and home-made produce shops (Nostra produzione).  But what I noticed most here were the posters and one in particular for the Festa della democrazia.

In the cathedral, it took me a little while to work out the lines laid diagonally across the floor with star signs running down each side.  Eventually I linked it with the small hole in the dome on one side and worked out that it was a sun calendar.  Every time I begin to think I've seen it all, something else emerges to startle me about the creativity and energy of people who came before me on this planet!

Ragusa

So I set the alarm for 4.30 am and the local taxi arrived for me at 5.15.  When I had phoned the day before, Franky, the taxi driver told me that he was also going to Catania for the feast of St Agatha but on a later flight.  Malta is very much a part of the cult of this saint that I first became interested in when we were traveling down from Rome to Catania in September last year.

The tour group that I was to join at the airport was lead by Paul Cassar from Gozo.  We were based in Catania for five days with bus trips organised for four half days.  This meant that we had plenty of time to explore Catania at our own pace as well as getting to see a few of the towns around Mt Etna.  

Etna is covered in snow at this time of year and forms a stunning backdrop as we drove along the highways of Catania.  When we were here in September, the countryside was very dry and brown but now it is lush and green and almost like the Tuscan landscape.  

The flight over from Malta takes less than an hour and the plan was to board the coach at the airport and visit Ragusa before checking into our hotel in the afternoon.  I was beginning to have doubts as we drove through crowded Catania streets and stopped for coffee and toilet at a strange Catania coffee shop.  When we stopped again at a freeway service station at the request of one of the members of the group I started to wonder what I had let myself in for.

In Ragusa, we drove backwards and forwards through heavy traffic over several bridges that traverse a deep gorge running through the centre of the city.  The driver kept stopping to ask for directions but eventually we were dropped off at the central cathedral square.  We had two and a half hours before we had to be back in the square ready for bus pick-up.  The cathedral is massive and I wandered across the square for a quick look inside as a way of getting myself going.

The amazing arches, domes, ceilings, paintings, gilding, statues, candles, relics have all blurred into a generic image for me now and I didn't spend long inside.  When I came out, I wandered over to one of the bridges over the gorge and walked across to the other side.  I then found back streets that allowed me to wander along the edge of the gorge so I started to recover my pleasure in new places.  

The gorge is stunning as is the valley that I discovered on the edge of town.  But what I will remember most about Ragusa are the padlocks!  I discovered a walking bridge across the gorge, and as I was crossing, looking into the gorge through the iron railings I started to notice padlocks and chains locked onto the bars.  For a while, I couldn't work out what they could be for - maybe the people of Ragusa use them to chain up their bikes here.  I noticed there were names on some of them and I thought that particular people must have the key to each padlock and at a certain time they come and attach something to the railings.  Finally I started to notice that most locks had two names on them, sometimes with words like unity or amor.  My hypothesis now is that two people from Ragusa declare their commitment to each other by putting a padlock on the bridge.  The photo that heads this post is of a small group of these padlocks but there were hundreds of them across the bridge, and since that first sighting, I have noticed padlocks in Acireale as well.

When I got back to the large piazza at the cathedral I climbed the steps onto the massive verandah in front of the church and settled on the parapet to take photos of the square.  There was graffiti along the parapet and there were two padlocks again.  Members of the tour group began drifting in and settling on the benches in the piazza.  Eventually the bus arrived late and we all got back on board to head to the hotel.

Our package included an evening meal and we were checked in with plenty of time to get ready for dinner.  I found myself on a table for six and was to share dinner with the same people for the four evenings.  There was an older couple from Valletta who now live in Hamrun and had been coming to Catania for eleven years  and a very helpful couple from Ghargur who were traveling with their sister.  Victor later told me that he had made an ex voto commitment to St Agatha that if his prayer was answered he would come to Catania and light a candle for her.  That was why they were on the tour and they achieved their goal on the final day of the feast.

Apart from the pasta, the dinners were institutional and English!  But we shared some good Catanian wine and enjoyed the gossip.  Every so often, Vicky, Victor's wife, translated for me when she realised that they had all slipped into Malti.   They told me about Malta's national feast of St Paul which is on today and I am going to look out for them when I go up to Valletta now for the procession.

Back from Catania

This is a promissary note!  I'm back from Catania with hundreds of photos and jumbled experiences.  I've also had a full weekend with a field trip from Ghar Lapsi and a walking tour of Valletta so I'm still thinking about how I want to post all that.  I'm also needing to attend to things like grocery shopping, post office and health centre today so will spend any extra time deciding on photos and posts and will try and catch up during the week.

The photo was taken at the feast of St Agatha in Catania.

Naxxar to Fort Madlena

The photo is of fire buckets in the entrance of Fort Madlena.  

The Malta Ramblers walk yesterday met at the parish church in Naxxar.  This was my first visit to Naxxar and the bus seemed to be re-routed because of some hold-up on the outskirts of the town so it was close to 2.00pm when I got to the steps of the church and was greeted by Dr Gunter.  I had rushed things a bit leaving Marsaxlokk so hadn't managed to have lunch but I brought some Maltese bread with tomato and tuna with me so I sat on the steps to eat as the large crowd gathered for the walk to Fort Madlena.

Naxxar is another town I have made a note to re-visit.  The church is very elaborate from the outside and next to it is Palazzo Parisio and gardens now the home of the Marquis Scicluna family.  When we set of walking through the streets of Naxxar we passed interesting old houses, a curious looking tower and an old windmill converted.  

Our first stop was Ghargur where we stopped on the steps of another medieval chapel.  Dr Gunter pronounced the G in Ghargur and I later learned that this is the anglicised way of pronouncing what should be spoken as Arroor.  We walked along a road from where we had a good view down the valley to Bahar ic-Caghaq and along part of the Victoria lines, a British line of fortification that runs across Malta.  The Ramblers are planning a 7 hour walk along the length of the Victoria lines later in February and I will try and get my name down for this restricted walk.

We rounded a bend and saw a very large apartment development that runs down a whole side of the valley at Madlena.  I learnt from Sylvia who I met some time ago at the Mosta natural environment course that her husband used to ride his bike around these parts when there was nothing there but fields.  Just below the apartments, the road curves over an attractive old arched bridge.

We climbed up the Madlena side of the valley and then turned off to the right to double back to Fort Madlena.  The countryside is looking great just now and the wild fennel is coming into bloom as well as the almond trees.  Dr Gunter had arranged for us to have a guided tour of the fort with one of the volunteers who form part of the St John Rescue Corps.  The Corps, under the auspices of the most venerable order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, use the old British fort which is part of the Victoria lines as their Headquarters and Training School.  They also help to maintain the fort and have put out an information leaflet for Saturday afternoon visitors.

The fort was built in the late 19th century and was dug into the top of the hill for additional fortification.  There are some points as we walked around where I think I could detect some of the layers of rock that were talked about at the Maltese natural heritage course on Wednesday.

It was intended as a heavy-gun fort to guard potential landing points at Salina, St Paul's Bay and Mellieha but the era of invasion by sea was coming to an end, and the cost of firing large guns was so prohibitive that they were rarely used.

The views from the gun emplacements are of course excellent and I noticed several yachts and other small boats taking advantage of the keyhole of sunny weather we were enjoying.  I learnt that the stone surrounds of the gun emplacements used to be painted for camouflage, green in the wet season and brown in the dry season.

By the time we had completed the tour of the fort we were running out of time to return to Naxxar by a circular route and so we walked back the way we had come.  I was glad to meet up with Sylvia and her husband, Malcolm, again and they were able to give me a lift back to Marsaxlokk so I got home before it was dark and in time to start preparing for my trip to Catania tomorrow.  

I have arranged to be picked up at 5.15am to join the Catania group at the airport in the morning so this will be my last post until next weekend.