The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863, page 39 by Various Authors
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ou see them in Robert le Diable, or Linda di Chamouni, or on the stage generally--long gray robes down to their feet, cocked hats with cockle shells, long wands; some barefoot, some with sandals: on they passed, singing religious songs. Then came the peasantry, all in perfect theatrical harmony, costumes rigidly correct à la Sonnambula. German artists dressed in Sunday clothes à la Der Freyschutz. A café with festoons of lemon-peel hung from window to window--they are not up to this idea in Fra Diavolo. Pretty girls in latticed windows, with red boddices, white sleeves, flowers in their hair--legitimate Italian drama. Crockery-ware in piles--low comedy. A man with a table, Sambuca and Acqua-vita bottles on it, and wee glasses, one cent a drink: melodrama. Fresh oranges and figs, pumpkin-seed and pine cones; a house with mushrooms strung on thread, hanging from window to window--this was not for festival display, but is the common way of the country. Notices of the festa, containing programme of the day, including amusements, ecclesiastical and secular, hung up alongside the stands where they were selling lottery tickets--tragedy. Fountains, with groups of peasantry drinking, or watering horses and donkeys--pantomime. Priests, in crow-black raiment, and canal-boat or shovel hats--mystery. Strangers from Rome, in the negro-minstrel style of costume, if young men; or in the rotund-paunch and black-raiment dress, if elderly men; or in the chiffonée style, if Roman women attempting the last Parisian fashion--farce.
Here are the booths with rosaries, crucifixes, Virgin Mary's holy-water holders, medals of Pio Nono, or jewelry; gold crescent earrings, spadine (long silver hair pins); silver hearts, legs, arms, for votive offerings, and crosses without number.
Caper entered the church; it was filled, and stifling with heat and frankincense, and contadini, and wax