Corpus Christi Day in Rome generally finds the tide of foreign visitors on the ebb, happily so, at least from one point of view. The curious crowds who invade the churches in Holy Week are not always drawn by religion, nor is their presence always an aid to devotion. But by the time the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday comes the mere tripper has left for a cooler climate and other ‘sights,’ and the Italian, with those who know and appreciate his religion, is left more or less undisturbed. Sophistication vanishes, simplicity returns, and one has the feeling that what stage-managing there is comes from pure interest in the occasion, from an undivided attention to a great tradition. Corpus Christi Day processions are beautiful anywhere, but hardly anywhere do they show such ingenuous elaboration, such mingling of local pride, childlike pleasure, and natural beauty as at Genzano, the little town in the wine-growing country near Rome, above Lake Nemi.

For the people of Genzano and the country for miles round it is not only the festival of Corpus Domini; it is the Infiorata, the festival of the flowers. The religion of the country and the life and pleasures of the local inhabitants are intermixed in a way which only a people who have no doubts can show. It is, of course, a public holiday, and after the early Masses the cafes and the wineshops are full. A committee of townspeople is formed to organise the Infiorata.