e Cantu, Vita di Beccaria. For the magic spreading
of the plague in general, see Littre, pp. 492 and following.

As the seventeenth century went on, ingenuity in all parts of Europe
seemed devoted to new developments of fetichism. A very curious monument
of this evolution in Italy exists in the Royal Gallery of Paintings at
Naples, where may be seen several pictures representing the measures
taken to save the city from the plague during the seventeenth century,
but especially from the plague of 1656. One enormous canvas gives a
curious example of the theological doctrine of intercession between man
and his Maker, spun out to its logical length. In the background is the
plague-stricken city: in the foreground the people are praying to the
city authorities to avert the plague; the city authorities are praying
to the Carthusian monks; the monks are praying to St. Martin, St. Bruno,
and St. Januarius; these three saints in their turn are praying to the
Virgin; the Virgin prays to Christ; and Christ prays to the Almighty.
Still another picture represents the people, led by the priests,
executing with horrible tortures the Jews, heretics, and witches who
were supposed to cause the pestilence of 1656, while in the heavens
the Virgin and St. Januarius are interceding with Christ to sheathe his
sword and stop the plague.

In such an atmosphere of thought it is no wonder that the death
statistics were appalling. We hear of districts in which not more than
one in ten escaped, and some were entirely depopulated.

Such appeals to fetich against pestilence have continued in Naples down
to our own time, the great saving power being the liquefaction of the
blood of St. Januarius. In 1856 the present writer saw this miracle
performed in the gorgeous chapel of the saint forming part of the
Cathedral of Naples. The chapel was filled with devout worshippers of
every class, from the officials in court dress, representing the Bourbon
king, down to the lowest lazzaroni. The reliquary of silver-gilt, shaped
like a large human head, and supposed to contain the skull of the saint,
was first placed upon the altar; next, two vials containing a dark
substance said to be his blood, having been taken from the wall, were
also placed upon the altar near the head. As the priests said masses,
they turned the vials from time to time, and the liquefaction being
somewhat delayed, the great crowd of people burst out into more and more
impassioned expostu