What was in the mind of the Florentine woman who gave 'ex voto'
a keg of wax to the Annunziata, because her lover, a monk, had
gradually emptied a barrel of wine without her absent husband finding
it out. Then, too, as still in our own days, different departments of
human life were presided over by their respective patrons.
The attempt has often been made to explain a number of the commonest
rites of the Catholic Church as remnants of pagan ceremonies, and no
one doubts that many local and popular usages, which are associated
with religious festivals, are forgotten fragments of the old pre-
Christian faiths of Europe. In Italy, on the contrary, we find
instances in which the affiliation of the new faith to the old seems
consciously recognized. So, for example, the custom of setting out food
for the dead four days before the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, that
is to say, on February 18, the date of the ancient Feralia. Many other
practices of this kind may then have prevailed and have since then been
extirpated. Perhaps the paradox is only apparent if we say that the
popular faith in Italy had a solid foundation just in proportion as it
was pagan.
The extent to which this form of belief prevailed in the upper classes
can to a certain point be shown in detail. It had, as we have said in
speaking of the influence of the clergy, the power of custom and early
impressions on its side.
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