The Remarkable Procession of St Rose of Viterbo

On September 4th, the Italian city of Viterbo (roughly 50 miles to the north north-west of Rome) celebrates the feast of its patron Saint, a young woman named Rose who died in 1251 or ’52 at the age of only 17. The details of her life are poorly documented. In her time, Italy was wracked by political conflict between the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors, and their factional supporters, known as the Guelfs (the papal side) and Ghibellines (the imperials.) This conflict is one of the most complicated aspects of all European history, and I could not even begin to explain it in a post such as this. Suffice it to say that Rose became famous when, at the age of only twelve, she began to rouse the people of her city to resist the Ghibelline occupation; so effectively, in fact, that she and her family were sent into exile.

St Rose of Viterbo Receiving Communion, ca. 1667, by the Spanish painter Juan Antonio de Frías y Escalante (1633-69). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Rose predicted the imminent death of the Emperor Frederick II in December of 1250, and with his passing, the Guelfs regained control of the city, and she was able to return. She now sought to enter the local Franciscan convent, but was refused either because of her poor health, or for lack of a dowry, or perhaps both. This may seem rather inappropriate for the Poor Clares, but they were still a very new movement (St Clare herself was still alive), and Viterbo was not a large or particularly rich city, so the sisters likely could ill afford a mouth to feed with no provisions at all. Rose is said to have replied to the abbess, “You will not have me now, but perhaps you will be more willing when I am dead.”

With the aid of her parish priest, she and a few other young women formed a small community of their own, but the nuns prevailed upon the Pope to order its suppression, since they had been granted the privilege of having no other women’s religious house near their own within a certain distance. (Petty clashes of this sort were all too common a feature of medieval religious life, alas.) Rose therefore returned to her parents’ house, and died shortly thereafter. The very same Pope who had ordered the suppression of her little community, Innocent IV (1243-54), ordered that the cause for her canonization be opened; it was brought to completion in 1457. On September 4, 1258, her mortal remains were translated from their original place of burial to the very same convent to which she had been refused entry as a religious, just as she herself had foretold.

The shrine of St Rose in Viterbo, with the previous “macchina” (explained below), in front of it. After decades of more modern looking towers, the current designer, Raffaele Ascenzi, has made a happy return to the Gothic style that prevailed in the 19th century. The church’s very dull façade is the result of a particularly unfortunate neo-classical renovation done in 1850... our own is not the first generation of barbarians. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by LucaFernandi, CC BY-SA 4.0)

St Rose’s relics. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Although the day of her death was March 6, Viterbo keeps her feast on the anniversary of this translation. Since time out of mind, it has been the city’s custom to mark the day by building a tower with an image of the Saint at or near the top, and carrying it through the streets and piazzas, following the route of the original translation. Over the centuries, as new towers have been commissioned, they have grown to the extraordinary height of nearly 100 feet, and weight of over 5½ tons, requiring 100 men or more to carry them. As may be imagined, the procession of the “macchina”, as it is called in Italian, has seen some unfortunate incidents, and some rather comical failures. In 1790, the macchina collapsed, and in 1814, a different one fell backwards, and a few of the men carrying it were killed. In 1967, a newly designed one (pictured right), commissioned too late in the year for its materials to be properly tested (ah, Italy...), got rained on, making it too heavy for the porters to finish the route. It was repaired, however, and used for 12 years.

Since 1952, the macchine have been given names. A new one, scheduled to be used until 2028 inclusively, debuted yesterday, and is called “Dies natalis”, Latin for “birthday”. This is also the technical term used very often in the Martyrology, and many other Christian documents before it, for the day on which a Saint dies, and is therefore “born” into eternal life. It is difficult to think why this name was chosen, since Rose’s feast is not actually celebrated on her dies natalis. Here are two videos of it being carried for the very first time; in the first, it departs from the place where it was built, and in the second, it arrives at the piazza in front of the church were the relics are kept. Evviva Santa Rosa!