26
Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me,
cannot be my disciple...
“Gospel of St John”
MOST MODERN VISITORS TO APULIA, seduced by the blue of the Adriatic, confine themselves to the beautiful cities of the coast or the Baroque splendour of Lecce. If they bother to adventure inland into the Murge, it is usually to inspect such showpieces as Ruvo or Alberobello, or to wander over the battlefield of Cannae. They miss a lot that is well worth seeing.
Noicattaro is among the Murge’s quieter little cities, and at first sight does not look very interesting, save for a good Romanesque chiesa madre from the thirteenth century. Formerly its name was Noja, only becoming Noicattaro in 1863. All that Pacichelli could find to say about the city was that it was “the seat of the Duchy of Noja of the Lords Carafa, set amid fertile fields”. And full of “commodious houses, palaces and convents.”
The abate does not mention an incident that occurred some years before his visit. In 1676 a servant of the Count of Conversano was caught poaching in the forest which then surrounded the city and resisted arrest so violently that the Duke of Noja sent him home minus ears and nose. Shortly after, Count Giulio Acquaviva came to Noja at dead of night with 300 armed men, broke into the ducal palazzo, dragged the duke out of bed, bound him and threatened to amputate his features in the same way. Only the tears of his duchess and of his mother the dowager saved the Lord Carafa.
As has been seen, there was a bloodthirsty streak in this branch of the Carafa family who were also Dukes of Andria, and the unfortunate citizens had to put up with some occasionally savage misrule. Adjoining the main piazza at Noicattaro are the battered remnants of what was once the Carafa’s palace, where a heartfelt inscription on a worn tablet hails “the breaking of the feudal yoke.”
In November 1815 bubonic plague broke out at Noja, probably imported from Albania. For a month the citizens refused to believe it. Then the entire city was put into quarantine for a year, three trenches being dug around the walls and cannon mounted at the gates, to prevent anybody leaving; if a man tried to jump over the trenches, he was shot by the guard of the cordon sanitaire (quarantine barrier). Three bored soldiers who used a pack of cards thrown to them by someone inside the city went in front of a firing squad. The carnival became a Dance of Death, when out of fifty celebrating the days before Ash Wednesday forty-five were dead within a week. No less than two thirds of the population died of the plague, the last in June 1816.
When Keppel Craven came two years later, he found a ghost town: “The whole was untenanted, the habitations having been unroofed at the time that the general purification took place; this consisted in repeatedly burning all suspected clothes, goods and furniture, and in renewed ablutions and fumigations, followed by a scraping of the walls and universal white-washing.” The chiesa madre was white-washed too, when the first victims were buried there in a communal tomb inscribed:
Sepolcro di Appestati
Pena di morte a chi osa aprirlo
(Tomb of the plague-stricken
Who dares open does so on pain of death)
Most, however, were buried in a plague-pit next to the Augus-tinian priory on the edge of the city, which had been converted into a plague-hospital.
The drama of Maundy Thursday at Noicattaro rivals anything that takes place in Italy during Holy Week. After a white-hooded confraternity, a doleful band and finally the sindaco (mayor) in tri-coloured sash have passed, there seems little point in staying. Then, dimly lit by small red lamps on every balcony, people are seen to be gazing intently at something outside one of the lesser churches. Suddenly a huge cross rises from the ground, borne by a figure in black, shrouded from hooded head to ankles, hands black-gloved, feet bare; an iron chain with links an inch thick is tied to one ankle.
In the dusk, carrying the great cross, the faceless penitent staggers down the road, preceded by boys cracking wooden rattles and followed by a growing crowd. There is no sound other than rattles and dragging chain. The figure falls heavily three times, in memory of Christ’s Passion. It leaves the cross at the main door of the chiesa madre, to kneel at the high altar; a dull, repeated thudding is heard, the penitent scourging itself with the chain. Rising from its knees, it goes out into the moonlight to pick up the cross (which weighs 60 kgs) and slowly continues its painful way down the road to the church of the Carmine. Again, it falls heavily three times. The silent crowd follows. Now and then, someone runs forward to touch the cross. A further scourging takes place before the high altar of the Carmine, above which hangs a text:
AS THE PELICAN IN THE DESERT WOUNDS HERSELF AND DIES SO THAT HER BROOD MAY ENDURE AND LIVE, SO CHRIST GAVE HIS BODY AND BLOOD FOR OUR SALVATION THAT WE MIGHT LIVE.
The rapt crowd has entered the church in the penitent’s wake, watching mutely. Suddenly, a second figure in black appears, crawling up the aisle on its knees. On reaching the altar, it gives itself another thirty blows with its chain. Some of the community of brown-habited Carmelite friars, sitting mummified in the crypt below, have heard similar blows every Lent for over two hundred years.
On that Maundy Thursday night you will see at least a dozen other hooded figures in black carrying huge crosses to every church in Noicattaro. Despite bleeding feet they will go on doing so until dawn breaks. They are the confraternity of the Addolorato, men and women whose identities are known only to the confraternity’s chaplain, doing penance not just for their sins but for those of the entire community.
On Good Friday, in almost every Apulian city a black-robed statue of the Madonna Dolorosa, a silver dagger piercing her heart, is borne through the streets, escorted by a mournful town band, hooded confraternities and hundreds of women in black. At Molfetta a nineteenth century Neapolitan statue of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane is carried on the shoulders of the oldest confraternity in Apulia, the Arciconfraternità di Santo Stefano; at His feet lies a reliquary containing a fragment of the True Cross. At San Marco in Lamis the sorrowful Madonna is preceded by fracchie, huge wooden cones that are drawn at the head of the procession and then set on fire.
On Easter Sunday, together with a life-sized statue of the Risen Christ, a doll representing Lent is paraded in some places. Stuffed with fireworks, the doll is thrown onto a flaming bonfire while the crowd cheers. These ancient processions derive from the old pagan spring festivals but the form they take is a legacy of Spanish rule, and Apulians from all walks of life take part in them.