In Padova

I like visiting the Basilica del Santo in Padova. Artistically it is quite a treat: there are many very beautiful objects, most by artists of whom even the most stalwart Italian art aficionados have never heard, providing for that delicious sense of participating in a conspiracy. Many are safe to remain undiscovered: the technically astounding wrought iron gates of the chapels behind the presbytery (with delicate roses and tempting pomegranates) are, well, too “artisan” to make it into art books; and the beautiful neogothic ceiling is surely too “derivative”. There are three delicious cloisters in which one is invited to picnic as well as – a rarity in Italy – a comfortable set of public toilets. There are crowds, but not the usual Venetian sort: most visitors here appear to be pilgrims, and pilgrims of the good sort, reverent and subdued, neither loud, nor bossy. No one tells you to pray. In fact, no one tells you to do anything.

The tomb of St. Anthony of Padua (who was actually if Lisbon) is normally enshrined in a large chapel in the left nave, with walls decorated in large high relief panels of the miracles of the saint (by someone famous, for once – Sansovino). Though I find the beautifully restored chapel on the opposite side, jewellike with the frescos of the life of Saint James by Altichiero da Zevio more pleasing, the Sansovino reliefs are fascinating in their own right: all of the saint’s miracles are miracles of healing. Most pilgrim’s pleas have to do with hopeless medical cases.

And herein lies an important clue to the mystery of the church’s rapid decline since 1945: in 1945 the first antibiotic was invented. Since then the demand for miracles has significantly declined.

Among the more forgettable objects of art here is a modern bronze figure of St Anthony interceding between flying baby Jesus and the faithful beneath. He stretches one empty hand down to us while with the other he swings a terrified baby overhead, as if about to smash it against the floor. The overwhelming impression of impending infanticide does not seem to occur to the pilgrims, who love to pose holding the outstretched empty hand of the saint (they appear to find the proposition simply irresistible) thus creating an ideal opportunity for virus propagation. Within 48 hours many of the pilgrims will begin to feel the onset of flu. “I should have worn a sweater the other day”, they will say to themselves through their sore throats. (The germ theory of disease is not widely accepted: we really do learn nothing in school).

The murky holy water in the otherwise wonderful fonts in alabaster (it is a pair: the one on the right has the figure of St John the Baptist, the one on the left, of Christ being baptized) is another conduit of disease. People dip their fingertips here, cross themselves, then reverently kiss the fingertips.

Since the church has benefited from disease, it makes sense it would seek to promote it. Religion does not ride parasitically on disease. Disease and religion live in a kind of symbiosis.