MORTI, FESTA dei. — The feast of the dead (2 Nov.; for the liturgy, V. DEFUNTI, IV. IV. Commemoration of all the faithful d.) gives rise to a series of manifestations that attest to the very lively cult that the people foster toward their deceased family members, as well as the numerous, sometimes strange beliefs concerning the condition of the dead in the afterlife and their relations with the world of the living.
It is an extremely widespread belief that on that night the dead return to see again the places where they lived and to visit their own home. The popular imagination sees these endless processions of the souls of the deceased, who, reciting rosaries and litanies, enter the city and attend the “Mass of the dead”: numerous are the legends of events that befell people who happened to witness such processions or Masses. In Friuli, peasants leave a lamp burning on the table, buckets filled with water, and a little bread on the table; in Lombardy, they leave the table set, the fire burning, and chairs around the hearth, because on that night the dead feel the need to eat, drink, and warm themselves. Also very widespread is the custom of everyone rising very early from bed on those nights, in order to leave their places to the dead.
The ritual food on this occasion was the broad bean: “According to the ancients, broad beans contained the souls of their departed: they were sacred to the dead. Among the Romans they held first place at funeral banquets” (Pitrè). Under the influence of Christianity, the offering of broad beans to the dead was transformed into a charitable distribution to the poor: in connection with this, in Romagna and elsewhere, it was customary to place at street corners large tubs or other containers filled with boiled chickpeas or lupins, from which anyone could take some. Today the “broad beans of the dead” are generally replaced by sweets of the same name and of more or less similar form. In addition to broad beans, in Lombardy people eat “chickpeas with pork” and the “bread of the dead,” which is also given as charity; in Abruzzo the ritual food was pizza with sardines, and girls gave it as a gift to their fiancés. In Puglia, as in Abruzzo, groups of young people go around begging “for the souls of the dead,” while singing an occasional song. In Sicily, the tradition of giving gifts to children, as at Epiphany, was extremely widespread: these gifts were called precisely “things of the dead,” because they were imagined to have been left by the dead on the windowsill and at the doors of well-behaved children.
In Abruzzo it is believed that the dead may remain in their homes from 2 Nov. until Epiphany: during this period care is taken not to make the chimney chain swing, so as not to awaken the dead who are sleeping in the house. In Rome, during the Octave of the Dead, sacred representations took place in certain cemeteries (della Consolazione, di S. Spirito in Sassia, etc.); by means of wax statues or painted canvas backdrops, they evoked scenes from the Old and New Testaments or drew their inspiration from topical themes. The subjects varied each year and were reproduced in engravings and accompanied by Explanations in leaflets that were distributed to visitors. The custom, begun in 1763 by the Archconfraternity of Prayer and Death, lasted until 1849, and in the surrounding towns until the final decades of the nineteenth century. One of Pascoli’s most moving lyrics, La tovaglia in the Canti di Costelvecchio, is inspired by the popular beliefs mentioned above.