FORTEAN TRAVELLER
Mysterious Bari
Bari, in the south of Italy on the Adriatic coast, is the capital of Puglia and an attractive place for lovers of sun, sea and good food. Fresh fish are a speciality, with Bari’s working fishermen being known for their unusual method of dispatch upon netting an octopus; biting into its head for a quick kill!
Still a working port with an industrial zone to the northwest, Bari is best approached from the south-east along the coastal road. The sea is directly to the right, while on the left, an elegant parade of modernist buildings from the Fascist era follows the curve of the promenade leading into the city.
Ahead, the visitor will see the tall campanile (bell tower) of Bari’s Romanesque cathedral of San Sabino (for centuries, used by sailors as a navigation aid) in the centre of Vecchia Bari (Old Bari), a well-preserved mediæval walled town. Its maze of narrow alleyways have a hint of a Middle Eastern souk or of old Jerusalem. Vespas and bicycles whizz through these alleys past little shops and bars. Not having been overtaken by the tourist industry, local people still live in Old Bari, as can be seen by the clothes hanging out to dry from windows, and on washing lines strung across its backstreets.
It is easy to become lost in this labyrinth, but some of its streets open out onto piazzas which offer relief to the claustrophobic. One such, the Piazza Mercantile, the old marketplace, features a marble column mounted on a circular base, a sculpture of an angrylooking lion at its base. On the lion’s collar is inscribed “CUSTOS IUSTICIAE” (Guardian of Justice). Legend has it that Bari’s debtors were made to sit on the lion with hands raised, which were then tied or chained to the Colonna Infame (Column of Infamy). The unfortunate debtors were then subjected to public mockery, or worse – a flogging. Certainly, towards the top of the column, several indentations around the its circumference can be seen. An alternative, if more prosaic, explanation is that the column was once located on Bari’s dockside, and that sailors would tie their ship’s hawsers around it when moored.
A more curious column may be found in the crypt of the Basilica of San Nicola (Saint Nicholas, 270-343 AD), also built in the Romanesque style. This is the legendary “flying column” of red porphyry which is kept in a cage to prevent it from flying away. Women seeking a husband would traditionally circle the column seven times on St Nicholas’s feast day, 6 December. That the column is still believed to possess great power is evinced by the numerous pieces of folded paper at its foot, upon which petitioners have written their prayers or requests.
The bones of Saint Nicholas, the original Father Christmas
and the patron saint of Russia, are housed in his tomb in the crypt – reportedly the site of a repeated miraculous manifestation of manna. Nicholas devotees argue whether the manna springs from the saint’s actual bones, or from his tomb, both being holy. Unlike the Old Testament version, this manna isn’t food, but liquid. Half a litre or more is regularly found in the tomb, which on 9 May each year is collected in bottles and distributed to the faithful. One sample was analysed at the University of Bari’s Department of Chemistry in 1925; they found the liquid to be water. Nevertheless, the exact process by which the manna is produced has remained a mystery.
Since he is their country’s patron saint, many Russians come to Bari, especially in December for his feast day. Such is the basilica’s popularity with these modern-day pilgrims that its signage is written in both Italian and Russian Cyrillic. Nicholas doesn’t have any original historical association with Bari, or even Puglia; the holy relics of the saint were in effect stolen from the church of St Nicholas in Myra, Lycia (south-west Turkey). In 1087, Seljuk Turks overran Myra and, during the ensuing chaos, a band of enterprising Barese sailors who happened to be in the vicinity grabbed the saint’s bones and took them to Bari ( FT56:42-45).
These relics certainly helped enhance Bari’s popularity and prestige, and in terms of worldwide fame, Bari’s Saint Nicholas and his Basilica have eclipsed its Cathedral, named for the city’s patron saint, St Sabino (or Sabinus, 461-566), Bishop of nearby Canosa; before the town was about to fall to the Saracens, his bones were taken to Bari for safekeeping in 844. The two columns flanking the Cathedral doors are each supported by large stone bulls; they once sported golden horns, though only the sockets now remain.
Immediately to the right of the cathedral’s main entrance is a glass-enclosed podium upon which lies the body of a woman clad in a beautiful dress. This is Saint Columba, and the skin of her face, hands and feet are shrunken and shrivelled, teeth protruding from peeled-back lips. The restored embalmment is an unsettling sight, as she appears to be merely sleeping and one has the distinct impression that she could wake at any moment. Her actual bones are supposedly housed in a reliquary in the crypt.
Sabinus’s statue in his eponymous Cathedral is accompanied by an inscription declaring the saint to have been an implacable foe of pagans and paganism. This is strange, as the cathedral has several elements suggestive of preChristian beliefs having been incorporated into the design of the building during its
The legendary ‘flying column’ is in a cage to prevent it from flying away
construction between the late 12th and 13th centuries.
Part of the crypt’s floor proudly features the mosaic of a huge, sinuous serpent, not what one usually expects to see in a Christian church. The present building stands on the ruins of a Byzantine cathedral (destroyed by William the Bad in 1156). Through a rose window high up on the facade of the cathedral streams sunlight, which, on 21 June, the Summer Solstice (and only on this day), slowly creeps along the floor of the nave. At precisely 5.10pm (17.10) the sunlight falls upon a marbled design echoing that of the rose window.
Why 17.10? No-one is quite sure, but this Midsummer ceremony, which takes place in the cathedral each year to a packed audience, is certainly an impressive sight. A procession of 18 young women (to match the 18 ‘petals’ of the rose window) appear, dressed in white robes and flowered garlands. They circle the rose design on the floor, as incense smoke rises in plumes and curlicues up to the ceiling amid the shafts of sunlight. The white dresses are perhaps suggestive of the Cathars, while the flowers (and the dancing around an ornamental tree) indicate pagan fertility rites.
Visitors to Old Bari should not miss the impressive, imposing castle, whose construction was begun in 1131 by Roger the Norman and continued by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, stupor mundi (‘the wonder of the world,’ so named for his achievements both in war and in diplomacy, and for his great learning and enquiring mind).
The castle’s halls and chambers contain various striking carvings and decorations in the forms of beasts, real and mythical. An eagle, Frederick’s symbol (he was very fond of falconry, and famously wrote a manual on the subject) is a recurring feature. Griffons and sphinxes also appear. One of the more peculiar examples is found in a room of plaster casts, the originals being elsewhere in Bari or the surrounding area.
Among green men and Baphomet-like heads is a basrelief (from the Cathedral of San Nicola Pellegrino – another Nicholas – in Trani, Puglia) that depicts a strange beast.
It is captioned as a ‘leone’ – but whoever heard of a lion with horns? Perhaps it is instead an early, South Italian manifestation of Mothman...
A big thank you to Marileda Maggi, my guide to Old Bari, without whom the above would not have been possible.
Getting there: Bari has its own airport, and under normal travel conditions two high-speed trains run from Rome each day and it is also a regular stop for cruise ships.
NOTES
1 The column is believed to date from the early 16th century, while the lion is thought to have been taken from a first century Roman villa. This early form of architectural salvage was widespread during Italy’s mediæval and Renaissance periods.
2 Is it because these numbers add up to 18, the number of ‘petals’ on the rose (the remainder of the church appears to have been designed according to the sacred geometry of the number eight)? Or does it refer to chapter 17 verse 10 of Revelation, which states that of “seven kings, five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come”, perhaps relating to the seven pairs of animals around the rose window on the façade. Others have suggested that the number 17 is associated with the Knights Templar, who played a significant role in Bari’s early mediæval history, and that the number 10 signifies spiritual perfection or human divinity.
3 There are several videos of the ceremony available on YouTube.