Genoa: Feast of St. John

Being the quasi-adventuresome types we are, we pointed on a map of Europe and decided to head to Cinque Terra, Italy. Literally translated as the "Five Lands", the five cities of the Cinque Terra - Riomaggiore, Manarole, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso - were originally discovered by backpackers in the late 90s and then became the subject of an entire Rick Steve's episode, leading to the onslaught of euro-wielding tourists. We decided to do our part and laced up our hiking boots.

Considering that most summer rooms in the Cinque Terra are booked months in advance, explaining to hotel reservationists that we needed a room for the upcoming weekend was like trying to explain Final Fantasy VII to a cheetah. Looking north and south along the Italian Riviera, we picked Genoa as a base of operations from which to launch our campaigns into the Cinque Terra.

On Saturday, June 24th we arrived in Genoa and found ourselves in the midst of a gigantic party: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa holds the alleged ashes of St John the Baptist, stolen during the Crusades, which are taken out and paraded through the city every year on 24 June, St John's feast day. The celebration takes place on the saint's day and involves a solemn mass, followed by a procession where the ark containing the saint's remains is transported through the city. During the procession, burly teams of men carry gigantic crosses - one man bearing the full weight of the cross at any time. Part Cique du Soleil balancing act, part World's Strongest Man Competition, these men were juggernauts: my trousers could probably be snugly buttoned around one of these men's forearms.

When the procession arrives at the city's ancient port, a ritual benediction of the Sea and the City takes place, following which the remains are taken back to the cathedral and the ceremony is solemnly concluded.

Saint John has been the patron saint of Genova since the middle ages, when the ashes arrived in the city courtesy of a band of roving crusaders. The crusaders (or bandits, depending on your point of view) had gone off in search of the bones of Saint Nicholas (or Santa Claus), which were preserved in a church in ancient Demre, or Myra. Miraculously, when they arrived in 1099, the tomb of Nicholas had recently been robbed by sailors from Bari, who abducted the remains and took them back to their hometown.

Peeved, the Genovese started tearing up the floor of the church and discovered another set of remains. Believing these to be the real Saint Nicholas, they packed the bones up and were about to leave, when they learned from the cries and lamentations of the monks at the site that the bones were actually the bones of Saint John the Baptist, a much holier prize than jolly old Saint Nicholas. The Genovese returned to Genova as victors, with their bags full of holy bones.

Whether the remains of the saint are genuine or not remains highly dubious. The saint being one of the most popular saints of the Catholic church, his head was one of the most sought-after relics on the market. At one point at least 13 heads of Saint John were being venerated around Europe. The most prized one was kept in the Vatican, but irreverent raiders apparently sacked the city around the 7th century, finding the time to play three-way football with the revered heads of St. Paul, St. Peter and St. John before taking them off to unknown and remote destinations in Asia.

So the Genovese weren't really raiding, they were "recovering" the stolen relics. Makes you feel better about the whole thing, doesn't it?

Flickr set from the Feast of St. John and Genoa are here and here, respectively.

Thanks to the www.isic.org website for some of this content.