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Untitled Article
with a Jew Pedlar , a Swiss Merchant , and an Italian Count ! At Bologna I stayed two days to see the paintings , of which there are many by the first masters . Those in the Government Gallery are well worth seeing , but those in the churches are , in general , so much faded , that , whatever their beauty might once have been , it is now lost . There were , however , in
these churches some specimens of Catholic superstition , which were very striking . In that of St . Dominic I saw a printed tablet hung up in front of one of the little side-chapels , which contained a picture of the Virgin with Jesus on her knees . It had the following title : " A most holy Prayer , to be said before the ancient and miraculous Image of the Blessed Virgin , who was for many ages worshiped under the title of St . Mary of the Fevers at St . George ' s at Miramonti , afterwards at St . Girolamus ' , and now at St .
Dominic ' s . " The prayer then begins , " O most holy Virgin Mary ! Mother of God , " &c , and proceeds , " Entreat for me your most beloved Son Jesus , whom you hold to your breast , to avert the fever from my house , " &c , without saying a word about God . The paper then directs that the Ave Maria should be said three times ; and lastly , there is a very short prayer to Aknighty God in Latin , stuck in at the end as if to save appearances ! And what , after all , is the subject of this prayer ? Not that God would himself
avert the fever , but that he would make the supplicants sensible that the Virgin was interceding for them ; " tribue , qucesumus , ut ipsam pro nobis intercedere sentiamus , per quam meruimus auctorem vita suscipere . " Much in the same style , though not quite so flagrant , is the following prayer , addressed to St . Emigdy { S . EmidioJ , the averter of earthquakes : I copied it from a tablet in one of the churches . " A Prayer to the glorious Saint
Emigdy , Bishop and Martyr . O most glorious Saint Emigdy , Bishop and Martyr ! I pray you with all earnestness to obtain from the most high God , for this city and people , and for me in particular , miserable sinner that I am , the grace of being freed from the infliction of the earthquake , through the intercession to wit of the Virgin Mary , ( our Advocate and Protectress , ) with her most holy and divine Son . Amen . " Then follow a few short prayers in Latin to the same Saint , then a prayer to God , and lastly the benediction
of the Saint . Such things as these surely need only to be made known in order to be condemned . —If I had wanted any further proof that I was among a superstitious people , I should have found it in a procession which I witnessed in the afternoon of this day . There is kept , it seems , in a church two or three miles out of the town , a picture of the Virgin , which the good Catholics believe to have been painted by St . Luke the Evangelist . Once a year this picture is brought to the Cathedral of Bologna , where it remains
four days to the great edification of the inhabitants , who come and kneel before it . On the third day it is carried in high state , accompanied by all the priests and friars that the town can muster , to the church o £ San Petronius , where it gives its benediction and then returns . This ceremony I happened to see ; and strange it was to behold the whole multitude fall down on their knees , and cross themselves most devoutly , as her Ladyship courtesied to them three times from the top of the steps . Yet there are persons who think that such mummery as this can last !
15 th . In the afternoon of this day , the Madonna was carried back to her usual residence in the country , between which and the town there is a covered way the whole distance . She was escorted by the same attendance as the day before , and gave her blessing to the people as she went along the streets . Heretic that I was , I cannot say that I much valued the salute of
Untitled Article
Journal of a Tour on the Continent . 173
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1829, page 173, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2570/page/21/
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