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389. The story of Festino
The Plague and the Bones
The quest for the remains of that young hermit
went on for centuries.
Then the miracle happened,
in conjunction with the 1624 plague.
The plague did not come to Palermo by chance.
That the plague had spread over the neighboring Tunisia
had been common knowledge for more than a year.
That's why a ship from Tunis, carrying goods and freed slaves,
was denied permission to enter the harbor.
But Captain Muhammad CalavĂ knew what to do...
He went secretly ashore
and took "rich and precious gifts" to the Viceroy Emanuel Filibert of Savoy,
who finally gave the ship permission to dock.
The plague at first struck the inhabitants of this "CefalĂ " alley,
then it spread all over the neighboring alleys,
and eventually all over the city.
The population organized processions
and prayed to all the Saints in heaven,
but people just kept on dying
because of "some stinking buboes invading any part of the body".
Under instruction of a sick woman, delirious with the plague,
they discovered a place where to dig:
And right here, in this cave, was found a block of calcarenite
containing two skulls, a tibia, and some other bones...
but were they actually those of the Saint?
It was July 15, 1625.
In France, Versailles first building campaign had just begun...
Of course, nobody remembered that once there was a Punic temple here;
nobody remembered that the Carthaginians had settled here during their besiege of Palermo,
and that it was right here that they used to bury their dead.
A stone cutter was summoned in order to exhume those bones,
which eventually remained on a shelf, forgotten in the Archbishop's palace.
At that time, the Archbishop in charge of the diocese was Giannettino Doria,
a well educated and intelligent Genoese,
who wanted to get to the bottom of the matter, before giving his opinion.
He knew very well that the people of Palermo are unpredictable!
Meanwhile, the city was deserted, since it had become inhospitable.
The population kept on dying,
the market was deserted,
the streets were deserted.
The harbor had been closed, as well as the city doors.
Healthy men had lost their jobs, because everything was on hold.
People tried in every way to defeat the desease.
Odd remedies were tried,
such as vinegar perfusion,
roasted bay leaves vaporization,
and little bags full of some coral and deer horn powder,
which were to be worn on the breast, near the heart.
They definitely needed a miracle...A miracle, immediately!
And it had to be something coming not from above,
but from the very heart of the city
And eventually the miracle happened:
Emanuel Filibert of Savoy gave up his ghost, because of he plague.
Hurrah!
To be continued