SD1461. Journal Entry of Charles Eliot Norton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 307–308 (in part).
Florence
Dec’r 12th 1850.
In walking with Browning yesterday we talked as we had often done before about the effect of the Catholic religion and superstitions on the lower classes in Italy. He said that he believed many of the ignorant people regarded the Deity as a capricious, and selfish being, capable of acts of great kindness but needing to be propitiated almost like a tyrant,—that such believe [sic] was the natural result of the creed they are taught. He told me a story to illustrate his meaning. In one of the convents at Florence is kept what is called the Girdle of our Saviour. It is supposed to be efficacious in securing the fidelity of a husband, and it is let out for a small sum to those poor women who have reason to suspect their husband’s faith. It is sewn by them into their husbands clothes secretly & is worn by the husband either till its virtue is proved, or the time for keeping it expires. He said that a poor woman was one day working in his house, and that her husband, a worthless fellow, who had given her much trouble, came on the same day to do a job of carpentering. The woman told Mr Browning with much interest and secrecy that her husband was then wearing this girdle, which she had hired. A few days afterwards the husband was worse & more outrageous in his conduct than ever. What could the woman think but that there was some exception, unaccountable quite as she had paid the due money, made against her? She would not doubt the power of the girdle, for it is characteristic of all superstition, to cling to the belief in the power of its object, even when it is not exerted in the cases when it has been most faithfully sought.
Another story he told me of the confusion in the minds of the poorer classes with regard to the objects of their worship. He said he had heard often an old nurse make the exclamation, “Per Jesu del Duomo, non il grande, ma il piccolo,” until at last he enquired of her what it meant, and he found that there were two images of the Saviour in the Duomo, and that the common people believed the smaller one to be much more propitious to their prayers than the larger one.
Another story still more painful was this. The nurses when they are nursing a child generally eat meat once or twice a week in order to keep up their strength. It happened that a poor nurse whom he knew was able to get meat on a Friday and had eaten it on that day. This she confessed, or it came in some other way to the knowledge of the priest, & since that time the offices of religion have been denied to her, and she has been in great trouble. Before they will be again granted to her she must pay a certain sum & perform certain acts of penance,—and she is now saving all her miserable earnings to buy back as she supposes her salvation.
This is easily paralleled in Hindu superstitions and exactions.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Harvard University.
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