L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS A t the Vatican Observa- tory in Castel Gan- dolfo, Jesuit as- tronomers—the more formal in Roman col- lars and cassocks, the more casual in polo shirts and chinos—wel- come past students from their bi- ennial summer school. These nos- talgic thirty-somethings, who have rebooked their old rooms at the nearby Villa Altieri, wish to cele- brate the Night of San Lorenzo with their former teachers before flying back to New York on Monday. The reception takes place be- tween the two wooden domes on the roof of the Apostolic Palace, the observatory's administrative headquarters. The bruschetta is as refreshing as the twilight breeze from Lake Albano, but the alumni, a gaggle of astrophysicists, science reporters, and planetarium direc- tors, are impatient to see the shoot- ing stars. For that, they must visit the new facility on the Albano Laziale side of the papal gardens. The Vatican's first in-house ob- servatory, dedicated in 1891 by Leo XIII, was housed in Torre San Giovanni on a hilltop in the west- ernmost tip of Vatican City, where it remained until 1935. When smoke and light pollution made it impossible to study the night sky, Pius XI transferred the observatory to Castel Gandolfo, 16 miles south- east of Rome. Ten years ago, it was moved again to this remodeled monastery, next to the farm that provides His Holiness with fresh vegetables and dairy products. Brother Guy Consolmagno, Di- rector of the Observatory, apolo- gizes to his guests. Last year, the new moon made viewing condi- tions perfect. This year's gibbous moon will make star-gazing more difficult, but its glare cannot com- pletely spoil the fireworks from Comet Swift-Tuttle. Every August, when the Earth plows into its wake, pea-sized bits of debris hit our atmosphere at 132,000 miles per hour, reach tem- peratures of 3,000 to 10,000 de- grees, and streak across the sky. Because they radiate from the con- stellation Perseus, who chopped off the head of the Medusa, the meteors are called the Perseid and rain like sparks from his sword. Most Romans, however, don't need a telescope to appreciate this spectacle. For three thousand years, they have preferred to use their imagination. Among the portents witnessed after the death of Cleopatra on Au- gust 10, 30 BC, the historian Cas- sius Dio mentions "comet stars," but this annual summer meteor shower already was part of the Ro- man calendar. The same date hon- ored the god Priapus. A procession of virgins bore an immense phallus and sprinkled the fields with a mix- ture of water, honey, and wine to ensure the land's fertility, a symbol of the primordial ejaculation of cre- ation. At dusk, the heavens echoed this symbolism with a shower of divine seed. Other deities were celebrated on August 10, including the Etr- uscan goddess Acca Larentia, mis- tress of the grain and protectress of the poor. The Early Church coopted her feast when it canonize Saint Lawrence, martyred on the same day in 258 AD. Lawrence, Archdeacon of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, admin- istered the Christian treasury. When the Emperor Valerian ordered it confiscated, Lawrence brought him the poor, the blind, and the crippled, to whom he had distributed the church's riches as alms. Enraged, Valerian sentenced Lawrence to be roasted to death on a gridiron. Be- fore dying, the archdeacon said: "Assum est. Versa et manduca." This side's well done. Turn me over and take a bite. The real joke is that this legend comes from a faulty transcription. While copying the customary and solemn formula for announcing the death of a martyr, "passus est" (he suffered), a scribe accidentally omitted the letter "p" so that it read "assus est" (he was roasted). Nev- ertheless, tradition still insists that the Perseid meteors are the embers from Lawrence's grill. Romans see what they want to see on the Night of San Lorenzo. At a barbecue on Via del Pigneto, pedestrians munch porchetta, watch the sparks rise and dance around the street lamps, and pretend that the stars nest in the trees. Under lantern-hung arbors in the vine- yards of Frascati, wine club mem- bers raise fluted glasses and let the stars bubble in their spumante. Everyone makes a wish: "Stella, mia bella stella, desidero che . . ." Only the astronomers at the Vatican Observatory seem to care that these desires are being projected onto a filthy snowball, 16 miles wide and passing the earth every 133 years. But as Father Angelo Secchi, Director of the Observatory at the Pontifical Gregorian University (1853 to 1878) and a pioneer in as- tronomical spectroscopy, once re- marked: "Neither Jesuits nor sci- entists are immune from illusions." Even Giovanni Schiaparelli, who discovered that Comet Swift-Tuttle is the source of the Perseids, be- lieved there were canals on Mars. Pasquino's secretary is Anthony Di Renzo, professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@ithaca.edu. This month, Pasquino makes a wish upon the shooting stars above the skies of Rome ANTHONY DI RENZO Stelle Cadenti Pasquino makes a wish The Vatican Observatory section at Villa Barberini

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