The Macabre Adoration of Mummified Children. Two Cases in Italy

The essay offers considerations on two religious cults, one in Trento dated fifteenth century, the other in a small Abruzzo town in the twentieth century. These cults are still alive and focus on the mummified bodies of babies; one in Trento is “Simonino”, the other in Abruzzo is “Donatino”. Both babies became the object of worship and devotionalpractices starting from a local, familiar practice of mummification; the devotion was successful and also involved people from other regions. By identifying the historical reasons for the emergence, continuation and diffusion of these extra-liturgical cult practices, the essay provides some general notions about Catholicism in Italy and the spectacularization of death with all the decay of the human body. Until the 1950s, Simonino’s mummy was also carried in procession throughout the city as a “Danse macabre” for children. The iconographic, social and religious aspects of the cult for these young mummies are a moral depiction and the population is still very attracted by that.