A Journeymen’s Feast of Fools

Abstract

No one knew precisely what was going on behind closed doors at no. 27 Calle Sporca in the Venetian parish of San Luca, but whatever it was upset several people. The landlord had seen the paper hats. A fellow tenant had overheard the singing and even seen the makeshift altar, as well as a number of other religious items — candles, a censer, and several pious paintings — in the room of the two journeymen next door. Lady Lucretia Salomono, a noblewoman who resided across the way, saw much more. From her window she had observed two young men wearing strange hats and garments. One young man, she said, bowed down before the other’s feet, while the latter held a censer. But she had not tarried at her window for long and she could provide few further details.¹

When we cannot get a proverb, or a joke, or a ritual, or a poem, we know we are onto something.

Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre, 1984