XII - The Funeral
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 April 2023
Summary
Abstract
This chapter describes Masaniello’s majestic funeral, citing closewitnesses. The ceremony, with its eloquent grave symbols –Christian, civic, and military – bespeaks multiple desires: ofthe viceroy, loath to figure as the killing’s chief backer; ofthe people, keen to show its unwillingness to forget Masaniello, whomthey identify with the wins obtained. Popular grief forMasaniello’s atrocious death waxes in synchrony with regret andfear, spurring majestic prayers and wild keenings for a man who, indeath, assumes a martyr’s, even a saviour’s aura. In somelitanies to the Madonna he is called liberator of the fatherland.
Keywords: funeral, ceremonies, remorse, grief, fear,miracles
So it came about that, on the evening of the 17th, boys went to rescueMasaniello’s remains. Tutini and Verde relate that his friend,Mercurio Cimmino, grieving his death greatly, paid ten ducats to someyoungsters to bring him to the Carmine.1 Masaniello’s body lay near amill. The boys fetched it, washed it,
and, leaving it on the bank of the creek under the guard of some of them,all the rest went to the house of the mother of Carlo and SalvatoreCataneo, who were his main killers, asked her for a sheet, andthreatened, if she refused it, to burn her house. Quickly given the bestshe had, they then returned to his cadaver, and, washing it again, laidhim in it.
Then, they went looking for the head, which had been thrown into the Fosse diGrano, a part of the grain storage complex. They worked fast becauseMichelangelo Ardizzone, who oversaw those places, had had a cannon installedthere. Masaniello’s remains were then brought back to the Carmine.There they were washed again in a tank filled with wine and myrrh, and sewnback together. Masaniello was once more whole. They placed on his head a hatwith a splendid big feather, in his hands the sword and staff “ofCapitan Generale,” and they laid him on a bier,and then covered him with a velvet cloth with a gold border, belonging tothe Carmine. The bier was installed in front of the great altar, where itremained for several hours.
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- MasanielloThe Life and Afterlife of a Neapolitan Revolutionary, pp. 203 - 216Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2023