May-day is lovely in Naples, from the air's caressing breath, from the vivid streak of blue sky that manages to make the darkest, most villainous streets gay. May-day is lovely, from the roses that bloom on all sides, seeming to grow from women and children's hands even, as well as all the common garden and field flowers. It is miracle-working San Gennaro's day. It is on May-day his relics are carried from the cathedral crypts--called _Succorpo_, or San Gennaro's Treasury--to Santa Chiara Church, so that the saint may deign, on the prayers of the people, to do the miracle of liquefying his blood. The Bishop of Pozzuoli's head, which was cut off by the executioner's axe, is set in an old gold mask. It bears the Bishop's mitre, enriched with precious stones, and sparkles with a thousand fires. The other relic is the coagulated blood, kept in a very fine crystal phial: through the cold dark clot of blood a straw is visible, going across it and immovable. It was gathered by pious folk present at the Bishop's martyrdom, and religiously preserved. This is the day, the fourth of the flowery, sweet-smelling May calends, that these relics go, borne in triumphant procession, from the cathedral to Santa Chiara Church.
Now, that year 188- it seemed as if the flower of faith grew more vigorously in the people's heart--that devotion to the city's patron burst forth more brightly; for since two in the afternoon the crowd had been rushing along to old Naples, obstructing the narrow streets, lanes and blind alleys. San Gennaro is profoundly popular in Naples, much--a hundred thousand times--more than the real first Bishop of Naples, Sant' Aspreno. But who remembers _him_? He is one of the forgotten ones of the martyrology, which has its shipwrecks in the sea of oblivion, such as happen in other seas.
Sant' Aspreno's little church stands in a lane in the Porto quarter, and is underground; one goes down thirty steps, below the level of the soil; it is merely an oratory, rude, dark, damp, and alarming, where Sant' Aspreno's stick is adored, the pastoral staff of Naples' first pastor. But who goes to Sant' Aspreno's? A few devout people and some lovers of archæological things. San Gennaro, before all the other saints--before Sant' Anna, the powerful old woman, or San Giuseppe, the patron of a good death, next in order to the Immaculate Virgin and the Eternal Father, who are worshipped in Santa Chiara. San Gennaro has the devotion of all lowly Neapolitan hearts to himself. Above all, he was a Neapolitan, born in that black, evil-smelling quarter, Molo Piccolo, where it seems his descendants still live, and take great pride in such an ancestor. He came of Naples common folk, and his family consists of some old working-women, who spend their time between work and prayer, carrying out the _spiritual life_--trying, at least, to reach their great ancestor's perfection in piety. Glorious San Gennaro, the Bishop who suffered martyrdom! His head was cut off by infidels at Pozzuoli, on a great marble stone, which is still preserved: it has a large scar, and three streaks of blood running down; the severed head, being cast into the sea, swam from Pozzuoli to Naples, the face keeping a deathly pallor from loss of blood.