Francesco De Ceglia, The Natural History of a Neapolitan Miracle Abingdon: Routledge, 2025. Pp. 436. ISBN 978-1-032-44260-0. £135.00 (hardback).
Year: 2025
Type: book-review
Abstract: What can I say about the blood of San Gennaro, religiously preserved in Naples?' asked physician Matthaeus Silvaticus in his renowned Pandectarum medicinae (mid-fourteenth century).To this enduring question, Francesco Paolo De Ceglia, professor of history of science at the University of Bari, has offered the most comprehensive answer to date in Il segreto di San Gennaro: Storia naturale di un miracolo napoletano, first published in Italian in 2016 (Einaudi) and now available in English translation.This book reconstructs the centuries-long intellectual, theological and political debate surrounding the blood miracle.Notably, the English edition reverses the original title and subtitle, perhaps to assist readers less familiar with the miracle.This was not always necessary.'Who hasn't heard of the miracle of San Gennaro's blood, kept inside a glass vial in Naples?' asked Spanish priest Louis of Granada, in the sixteenth century (p.60).Three times a year, in Naples's Duomo, before an enthusiastic and fervent crowd of believers, the blood of San Gennaro -housed in two small vials -liquefies (or 'boils', depending on the century, as De Ceglia shows).Should it fail to liquefy, terrible catastrophes befall the city, as occurred in 1980 with a devastating earthquake (for detailed statistics regarding failed liquefactions and catastrophes, see p. 246).The 'natural history' is De Ceglia's reconstruction of 'the culture that has identified it as a miracle, to either sustain or eventually challenge it' (p.6), leaving readers to parse the boundary between 'natural' and 'cultural'.Methodologically, the miracle is treated as a wonder with an 'epistemic function' (p. 7).De Ceglia combines anthropological insightin the tradition of Ernesto De Martino -with analysis of philosophical and theological traditions that tried to make sense of the phenomenon.He anchors these texts in social and political events, though more convincingly for later centuries.With a flair for storytelling, the fine, erudite and witty prose is a pleasure to read in Italian, though occasionally dense.The translators (Manuel Romero, Alessandra Balzani, Clorinda Donato and Jaclyn Taylor) have done an excellent job.The English edition includes twenty-five images absent from the Italian version, enhancing the reader's comprehension.The price of the English volume, however, is nearly four times higher than that of the Italian one.While this is likely De Ceglia's most widely known book, specialists in the field will already be familiar with De Ceglia's studies on corpses, vampires, demons and death.Drawing on an impressive variety of sources, including paintings, chronicles, religious treatises, natural-philosophy dissertations, legends and newspaper articles, De Ceglia interrogates the mechanisms behind the miracle's construction, and its consolidation across
Author: Barbara Di Gennaro Splendore
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4413804344