STREET GODS

You cannot walk 50 meters in Palermo without encountering a shrine of some sort nestled into a niche in a wall.  I absolutely love this spontaneous, eclectic, funky, naïve, religious street art.  The shrines are everywhere and are particularly prevalent in the poorer quarters of the city.  Maybe the poor think they need saintly protection.  Maybe the rich have their own secular form of security.  In any event, Palermo street shrines are delightfully ubiquitous.

Some shrines are lit with votive candles, the most popular current motif being Padre Pio (in the brown Franciscan habit above), who was canonized in 2002 and who, according to my Tuscan neighbor, is the patron saint of long-haul truck drivers.  I cannot substantiate (or trans-substantiate) that.  If you'd like to read more about him and his stigmatae, here's a link to his Wiki page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padre_Pio 

Other street shrines are electrified, mostly via violations of the electrical code and doubtless powered by hooking into somebody else’s current.  But nobody seems to care about these details.  Some of the electrified shrines are missing light bulbs, no doubt taken by someone in need.  

Most street shrines seem to favor the Benevolent Virgin Mary, either as a young, smiling girl-woman holding her roly-poly infant, or as a grieving, mature woman cradling her lifeless son, sometimes with a dagger through her heart.  There are benevolent Jesuses (Jesi?) with arms outstretched in a blessing, and there are bloody Jesuses grimacing in pain.  Santa Rosalia (below), patron saint of Palermo, crowned with roses, is also very popular in some quarters.  

The street shrines are often decorated with flowers, both real and plastic.  Frequently the real flowers are as dead as the saints they venerate.  The shrines might have photos of loved ones or soccer players or religious prayer cards balanced on their shelves or tucked into their niches.   

Most shrines are located just out of the reach of curious or vandalizing hands, which means the shrine’s caretaker needs to haul out a ladder every now and then to change the flowers, pristine the devotional, and generally tidy up.  Many shrines have anonymous creators, while others proudly display the curator and often the date of installation.

But enough words.  Let’s have a look at other street shrines I found in casual strolls through Palermo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Palermo is chock-a-block with indoor shrines, too.  If you’re interested, I recommend this photo essay by a French photographer published in the Guardian:  Emma Grosbois

Keep it real!

Marilyn