Many people know the Neapolitan saying «Non sfruculia’ ‘a mazzarella ‘e San Giuseppe!», but how many know that it is connected to the Saint’s Flowering Staff preserved in our Museum?
The precious relic arrived in Naples in 1712 with the celebrated castrato singer Niccolò Grimaldi, known as Nicolino, returning from the success he had achieved in the theatres of London. Having come from the Holy Land through a series of events where history intertwines with legend, the Staff had already been in England since the thirteenth century, kept in the convent of the Carmelite fathers in Sussex, and later passed into the possession of the Hampden family. Grimaldi received it as a gift from Anne Stuart as an act of gratitude and decided to display it to the public in his apartment on the Riviera di Chiaia on the Saint’s feast day and on other established occasions; and, as the sources recount, “the turnout of people was considerable, and even members of the Viceroy’s family went to Grimaldi’s house to venerate the relic”. Guarding the Staff was a servant of Venetian origin who invited visitors, eager to touch the precious object in order to win the favour of the Saint to whom it had belonged, to ‘non sfroliar’ (not to rub) the staff, which the Neapolitans immediately turned into ‘non sfruculiar’. Hence the famous saying which, when spoken, means ‘do not provoke and do not annoy’.
In the image:
M. Ricci, Nicola Grimaldi Conducting a Rehearsal of an Opera, 1700-1715. Oil on canvas. London, Graham Collection