In Rome there is a saying: “A pope dies, ya’ make another.” For Romans, popes come and go. A Roman might get a little bored or cynical about the whole thing, especially back when.
This morning was Francis funeral at St. Peter’s. When it was over, and I saw via live stream that the procession with his coffin had left Vatican City, I walked out of my apartment, around the corner, and up to the street where Francis’ body was to pass on its way from St. Peter’s to St. Mary Major.
The cars behind were full of cardinals.
It was a funeral procession of a pope. They come and they go. One might get a little bored or cynical.
One Roman who who was definitely not bored, but was more than a little cynical, as only Romans manage, was the 19th c. poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli… Er Belli. He wrote seriously funny sonnets in the Roman dialect about life in Rome and aimed some deadly satire at Rome’s clerics, religious, prelates and popes. He had a conversion when he saw Masonic thugs burning the confessionals in front of San Carlo ai Catinari. At first his sonnets, more than 2200, were for private readings only and he asked that, at his death, they be burned. That didn’t happen, Deo gratias. I’ve written about Belli before and read some of his poems.
I read them, but not as well as The Great Roman™ reads them!
Here is Belli’s sonnet about the death and funeral procession of Pope Leo XII. If you are agile you’ll catch some of the frankly obscene puns (far less shocking than the prose of Tucho’s pornotheology) along the way which are not reflected in the English translation (not mine). Read by, of course, The Great Roman™.
| Er mortorio de Leone Duodescimosiconno | The Funeral of Pope Leo XII |
| Jerzera er Papa morto c’è ppassato propi’avanti, ar cantone de Pasquino. Tritticanno la testa sur cuscino pareva un angeletto appennicato. Vienivano le tromme cor zordino, poi li tammurri a tammurro scordato: poi le mule cor letto a bbardacchino e le chiave e ’r trerregno der papato. Preti, frati, cannoni de strapazzo, palafreggneri co le torce accese, eppoi ste guardie nobbile der cazzo. Cominciorno a intoccà ttutte le cchiese appena uscito er morto da palazzo. Che gran belle funzione a sto paese! |
Last night the late great Pope went cruising by Pasquino’s corner, right in front of us, head nodding on a bed of fluffiness just like an angel kipping on the sly; and then the muted buglers came on down, and drummers drumming with a muffled din, and mules to haul the mighty baldaquin, and then the papal keys and papal crown; friars and priests, and next a clapped-out gun, and grooms who held aloft their flaming tapers, and then those bloody guardsmen on display. The bells of all the churches tolled as one the moment that the corpse went on its way… This country has such entertaining capers! |
| 26th November 1831 |
Belli might have purposely conflated the funeral of Leo XII (10 Feb 1829) and Pius VIII (30 Nov 1830). It doesn’t really matter.
BTW… what’s that Pasquino bit all about in the second line?
Some of you who have been in Rome quite a lot, or had a really good guide, or who have followed this blog, may know about the “statue parlanti… talking statues”.
In days past, these statues scattered about the Centro were used by various groups to post written opinions on public matters. The statues “talked” to each other. The most famous is Pasquino, near the Piazza Navona. The remarks Pasquino made were called “pasquinate”. (There’s also a great restaurant just across from it called Cul du Sac.)
Pasquino – maybe named after a local witty tailor way back in the day in that neighborhood – is a rather battered Hellenistic-style statue maybe 3rd c. BC found in the 15th c. century. The subject of the statue might be Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus, or some such Roman copy. In the early 16th c Cardinal Oliviero Carafa draped it in a toga and decorated it with Latin epigrams on the occasion of the Feast of Saint Mark. That opened the box, as it were, and people started doing this with other statues. They formed a public salon, the “Congress of the Wits … Congresso degli Arguti”, with Pasquino along with Marphurius (Marforio), Abbot Luigi, Il Facchino, Madama Lucrezia, and Il Babbuino. These poems posted were collected and published annually as early as 1509 as the Carmina apposita Pasquino.
Here’s Pasquino.
Up that street on the left and you reach Piazza Navona.
Loading ...
“A pope dies, ya’ make another.”
Simple man, simple life, no better way to go to the grave than on the back of a pick up truck.
Mary pray, Jesu mercy.
May he rest in peace.
I didn’t catch any of the jokes, but I loved the Great Roman’s voice!
I could hear the drumroll.
Satire, Socratic irony, rhetorical musings — written by Charles Haddon Spurgeon; though not Catholic, a contemporary of Giuseppe Gioachino Belli.
“Of all the dreams that ever deluded men, and probably of all blasphemies that ever were uttered, there has never been one which is more absurd and which is more fruitful for all manner of mischief, than the idea that the Bishop of Rome can be the head of the church of Jesus Christ. No, these popes die, and how could the church live if its head were dead? The true Head ever lives, and the church ever lives in Him.
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 14 p. 621
A man who deludes other people, by degrees comes to delude himself. The deluder first makes dupes of others and then becomes a dupe to himself. I should not wonder but what the pope really believes that he is infallible, and that he ought to be saluted as “his holiness.” It must have taken him a good time to arrive at that eminence of self-deception, but he has gotten to that by now, and everyone who kisses his toe or hand confirms him in this insane idea.
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 21. p. 413
Christ did not redeem his church with his blood that the pope might come in and steal away the glory. He never came from heaven to earth, and poured out his very heart that he might purchase his people, that a poor sinner, a mere man, should be set upon high to be admired by all the nations, and to call himself God’s representative on earth. Christ has always been the Head of the church.”
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 60, p. 592
I was surprised to see this – a wooden box stuck in the back of a white pickup. For the successor of Peter, whatever his faults.
Even everyday funerals in the US are more dignified than this. Compare this with the funeral procession of an American President, a mere secular authority rather than the spiritual head of a billion Catholics.
I think it was the usual “Popemobile” but with stuff removed.
The license was SCV 1.
Yeah, but they could have done something to jazz up the truck.
Black streamers, even. Some bunting along the sides of the truck.
And they could have greeted the truck with instrumental or vocal music. I mean, geez, it’s a funeral.
The Great Roman once again reading Er Belli, another gem! Thank you for these exquisite 46 seconds.
Pasquino, in the anguished pose of an introvert who is eternally embarrassed for being required to live out his days in such a public place.
How fitting, on the back of a pickup truck, not even proceeding at a dignified speed, for the Vicar of Christ to be borne to his grave. Looks like they were in a hurry to get him there. Don’t care whether you liked him or not, you show respect to the rank even if the one holding it is not to your liking (I saluted plenty of COs back in the day who personally were beneath contempt…but the jewelry on their collars was what I was respecting)
We show greater dignity taking privates in the army to their graves in Arlington. Regardless he was, beside the pope, also a head of state.
Is this a typically cynical Roman thing?
As Bryan D. Boyle notes, a pickup truck. Really? A Dodge Ram pickup truck? Don’t they have proper hearses in Rome???
I think any vehicle designated to carry the Pope gets SCV 1 license plates when it does so (not unlike Air Force/Marine/Army One). But I agree this Dodge Ram was a bit underwhelming. It must have been possible to find a decent hearse in Rome and surroundings.