AN ITALIAN FEAST.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 134, 26 November 1875, Page 13

AN ITALIAN FEAST.

ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DAY IN NORTHERN ITALY.

The author of • Peasant Life in Italy' gives the following- pleasant sketch of an Italian church festival: — It is Sunday, and the great fesla of San Giovanni Baptista. The church and the piazza since break of day have been well stocted with men and women in holiday cost ume, and the bells ring aiid jangle as of old. Since four o'clock the two priests have been hard at work at the altar, taking it by turns, with the masses. The air of the chancel, and oven of the nave, is by this time faint and heavy -with incense. The organ peals out quiet snatches of waltz and opera tunes. The congregation changes rapidly, for at each service the church is more or less crowded, and when the hour for the preaching draws nigh, a, new influx pours in from the piazza and from the roads and hamlets around. The people, who have been hushed and devout during the first part of the high mass, now begin to shift and shuffle in their seats, and there is a great whispering, and a sound even of suppressed laughter, while the priest ascends the little steps of the marble pulpit. Men lounge about the building, standing in groups around the door, crouching on tlie steps of the organ-loft, or even of the chancel, close packed, and careless in their attitudes, bub absorbed and intent, as no more genteel congregations ■would have been, when once the preacher's voice has had time to as°erl its power. The sermon is in the dialect of the valleys — short, concise, and pithy ; matter-of-fact and plainspoken. So with masses and sermon passes the morning of the great day, and in the afternoon is the procession. The peasants trudge home in their various directions across the parish to cat their holiday dinners, and by three o'clock the little piazza is again thronged with loiterers waiting for vespers. Little booths and tables stand about, whereon are sweets and filberts displayed for sale; rosaz'ies and gay-colored clay figures of saints; crosses and amulets to be worn around the neck ; rings of the Virgin or of the patron saint. Groups of people stand around laughing, boys and girls, men and Avomen ; it is a gay and changing crowd, bright with sunny colors and glittering in the movement. There is a great, glaring sun, and the piazza is but little shaded by the tall cypresses that gi-ow there, yet the people do not seem to mind. The women, it is true, have covered their heads with their yellow and crimson kerchiefs, but the men seem strangely careless of the sun's might. All along the way down which the procession is to pass, many colored trappings are hung along the hedges — scarlet, green nml blue stuffs ofjthe peasants, perhaps, or else thi' gs belonging to the Cli ivh, and used for many a long year on similar occasions. They make a rare and gaudy effect ; and down the Meps of the church and across its piazza the women hnve spread while sheeting, spun and woven by their own hands — for (lie girk work ln\rd at this coarser kind of linon wearing in our Appenmne \allejs, and in the most industrious cottages the loom is scarcely silent all day. Flowers, too,- — -sweet and scattered petals of golden bloom of vetch ;mdcislus — are str-wed over the white carpeting, virile files of childn n hem the way to scatter more blossoms again when the procession shall j>ass. The bells begin to tinkle anew ; and now n fair company of white-veiled damsels issue forth. They bear lighted tapois in their hands, and around their gaily adorned figures tlie pezzetlo (or muslin veil of the country) is cunningly draped. One girl in the front — and it is the tall nnd stronglimbed Bianea, ever the first to assert herself — carries the silvermounted cross Behind, und in due order, follow more girls, then the older women, and after the women the men, among whom many wondrous and time-honored figures, crosses and banners, are also borne a'oft above the heads of the people. In their midst are tlie priests, who move along, chanting slowly, beneath a fringed und gilded canopy. And the people sing, and the bells chime, and the children scream when the pop-guns are fired off. So the procession comes to an end. and soon alt<r tlie i'ay comes to an end. too — only before the night, is quite there, the youths and maidens must meet upon the green that they may dance awhile to the sound of the fiddles, and then thefesta is £. irly over in truth. It has been a long day, and the people are almost weary with the unwonted pleasure-making