Il Regno

January 7, 2026

Remembering Charles I, King of Naples and Sicily

Statue of Carlo I d'Angio, King of Naples and Sicily
sculpted by Tommaso Solari on the western facade of the
Royal Palace in the Largo del Palazzo Reale in Naples

In memory of Charles of Anjou (March 1226 — 7 January 1285), King of Naples and Sicily, we pray for the happy repose of his soul. Viva ‘o Rre!

Eternal rest grant unto His Majesty, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Pizza and Movie Night at the Church of the Holy Innocents in New York City

January 6, 2026

A Day at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library: Part I — Form, Revolution, and Light

Bronze statue of El Cid Campeador on his horse Babieca (1927)
on Audubon Terrace, located in front of the Hispanic Society
Museum and Library by Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973)

See Part II, Part III

Our recent visit to the Hispanic Society Museum & Library began outdoors, with the Terrace Sculpture setting a sober, almost monastic tone before we even stepped inside. After the long commute to Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan, it felt less like a prelude than an invitation to slow down and recalibrate the eye.

(L) One of two limestone lions with globes between their paws guarding the museum entrance. (R) Another look at the equestrian statue of El Cid

Two monumental limestone equestrian reliefs on the façade depict Boabdil, the last Nasrid king of Granada, and Don Quixote astride his gaunt horse Rocinante

(L) One of four seated life-size bronze warriors surrounding the El Cid
monument. (R) Bronze memorial tablet dedicated to Charles Pratt
Huntington (1871-1919), the architect who designed the Audubon
Terrace complex and the Hispanic Society buildings

Inside, Goya and the Age of Revolution grounded the visit in moral gravity and historical tension, while Joaquín Sorolla’s long-term Vision of Spain display provided a luminous counterweight.

The Third of May, 1808, oil on canvas, Unknown
Spanish artist, after Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

(L) Allegorical Portrait of Goya, ca. 1860, oil on canvas, by Eugenio Lucas
Velázquez (Spanish, 1817-1870) (R) Brigadier General Alberto Foraster,
1804, oil on canvas, by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)

Sketch for a Portrait of an Officer of the King's Dragoons, ca. 1808,
oil on tin, unknown Spanish artist after Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

(L) Victims of War, 1860-1870, oil on canvas, by Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (Spanish, 1817 - 1870). (R) Don Manuel Lapeña, later Marquis of Bondad Real, 1799, oil on canvas, by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746-1828)

Sad forebodings of what is going to happen, plate one of the series Disasters of
War, created 1810-20, by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)

Rightly or Wrongly/With or Without Reason, plate two of the series Disasters of
War, created 1810-20, by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)

What courage!/How Brave!, plate seven of the series Disasters of War,
created 1810-20, by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)

Where Goya confronts fracture and darkness, Sorolla bathes Spain in regional color and movement, offering not escape, but continuity.

(L) Bust of Joaquín Sorolla, bronze, 1932, by Mariano Benlliure y Gil (1862-1947). (R) One of 14 paintings known as Vision of Spain (1911)

Detail views of the Vision of Spain Gallery by Joaquín Sorolla

Baptism of the Lord at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Rockaway, New Jersey

January 5, 2026

The Silent Night of the Cucibocca

La notte del Cucibocca by Rocco Soranno, Wikipedia

Silentium sit vobis charum ut vivet non sit amarum [1]

At eventide on January 5th, the night before the Epiphany, dark and mysterious figures known as the Cucibocca descend from the ancient Benedictine Abbey of St. Michael the Archangel to wander the cobblestoned streets of Montescaglioso, a small hilltop town in Lucania, in search of the nove bocconi, or the “nine bites.” Knocking on peoples doors or visiting outdoor tables laden with nine different offerings, the locals proffer generous libations (wine) and alms (food) for the Cucibocca’s nocturnal visitation.

Dressed in black cloaks, overcoats, and broad brimmed hats made from old hemp disks from the towns historic oil mill, the grey haired and long bearded revenants represent the Montese’s ancestral spirits. On their journey, the eldritch pilgrims carry long walking sticks, lanterns, wicker baskets, and cobbler’s awls with twine. What’s more, they have orange peels for eyes and broken chains fastened around their ankles. Continue reading

Photo of the Week: A Roman Bust of Janus, Eternal Guardian of Thresholds, Gazing Simultaneously Toward the Past and the Future, Vatican Museums

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Feast of the Infant of Prague at the Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Raritan, New Jersey

January 4, 2026

Remembering King Ferdinando I of the Two Sicilies

12 January 1751 – 4 January 1825

In memory of King Ferdinando I of the Two Sicilies, we pray for the happy repose of his soul. Viva ‘o Rre!

Eternal rest grant unto His Majesty, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Feast of San Leucio at Our Lady Queen of Peace in Branchville, New Jersey

Upcoming Art Exhibitions in New York City (2026)

Despite the ongoing decline in curatorial rigor, which is increasingly subordinated to ideology, a handful of exhibitions in 2026 remain worth marking. Taken together, they suggest that even in a compromised cultural climate, seriousness has not entirely disappeared; it has merely become rarer, and therefore more worth seeking out.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Raphael: Sublime Poetry
March 29 to June 28, 2026

The Met Cloisters

The Museum’s gardens and orchard meadow
Spring—Summer 2026

The Frick Collection

Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture
February 12 to May 11, 2026

The Morgan Library & Museum

Giovanni Bellini’s “Pieta” Restored
January 15 to April 19, 2026

Caravaggio’s “Boy witha Basket of Fruit” in Focus
January 16 to April 19, 2026

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg
March 13 through May 31, 2026

Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions
June 27 to October 4, 2026

Rembrandt’s Lions: Art and Exile in the Dutch Republic
October 23, 2026, to January 31, 2027

Fantasy and Reality: The Art of Johan Tobias Sergel
October 30, 2026, to January 31, 2027

Late Medieval European Blockbooks: The First Printed Picture Books
November 6, 2026, through May 16, 2027

The New York Historical

Old Masters, New Amsterdam
May 1, 2026 - August 30, 2026

Poster House

From Monarchy to Modernity: Travel, Identity, & the Czechoslovak First Republic (1918–1938)
April 23–November 1, 2026

January 3, 2026

Blood Under the Wolf Moon

Luna

"Over the mountains
Of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
~ Edgar Allan Poe, Eldorado

January 3rd—The Wolf Moon rises again, cold and unadorned, without ceremony. A stark beacon in the winter sky, it does not illuminate—it exposes. A visceral call, it awakens the memory of my ancestors from the rugged karst and deep valleys of the mountains of Irpinia.

Blood remembers what comfort teaches us to forget. The pull of winter, the discipline of hunger, restraint before action—these things surface under the Wolf Moon. One does not become something new; one returns to something old. The modern world calls this regression. Our ancestors knew it as proper orientation long before memory learned to speak.

To the Hirpini, hirpus—wolf—was the name of the path they followed, the sign under which they moved during the ver sacrum, when the young were consecrated, expelled, and sent forward not to wander, but to found. What was left behind was comfort. What was carried forward was law.

The wolf survives winter by law, not rage. So the man who keeps faith with his inheritance learns restraint, accepts constriction, and waits in silence—ready to move without hesitation when duty calls.

This is not nostalgia. Blood-memory is not sentiment; it is obligation. To endure. To remain loyal to one’s own. To recognize that life is ordered toward sacrifice long before it is ordered toward pleasure. The ver sacrum has not ended—it has merely become interior, an ascetical discipline. We are still being asked what we are willing to relinquish in order to remain intact.

The ver sacrum was never about abandoning the past. It was about proving oneself worthy to carry it forward, even in the new world. Under the Wolf Moon, the question endures: what must be surrendered so that the line does not fail on your watch?

The answer is borne, not spoken.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, December 2nd, Feast of San Silvestro di Troina

Also see:
• A Luna Reverie
• Random Thoughts as the Wolf Moon Approaches

Feast of St. Genevieve

St. Genevieve, ora pro nobis

January 3rd is the feast of St. Genevieve (c. 419 – 502 AD), patron saint of Paris, revered for her piety, courage, and leadership during times of crisis in early medieval Gaul. Born in Nanterre, near present-day Paris, to a Gallo-Roman family of modest standing, she displayed signs of extraordinary devotion from an early age. According to tradition, when she was around seven years old, she encountered St. Germanus of Auxerre, who recognized her vocation and blessed her dedication to God.

Genevieve embraced a life of consecrated virginity, renouncing marriage and devoting herself to prayer, fasting, and works of charity. She became renowned for her asceticism and her influence as a spiritual leader, guiding both laypeople and clergy. By the mid-5th century, she had moved to Paris, where she became a key figure in the city’s religious and civic life.

The tomb of St. Genevieve

Her most celebrated act of courage came during the approach of Attila the Hun in 451 AD. While panic swept Paris, Genevieve rallied the citizens, urging them to remain in the city, fast, and pray for deliverance rather than flee. The Huns ultimately changed their course, and Paris was spared—an event attributed in popular devotion to her intercession.

Genevieve was equally resolute during later crises, organizing relief during famines, distributing grain from distant regions, and interceding with political leaders on behalf of the poor. She developed a deep devotion to St. Denis, patron of the Parisian church, and oversaw the construction of a basilica in his honor.

She died around 502 AD and was buried in the church she had helped to build, later the site of the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève. Her tomb became a major pilgrimage destination throughout the Middle Ages, and she was invoked especially for protection against siege and plague. She remains a symbol of steadfast faith, civic responsibility, and the transformative power of prayer.

In celebration, we’re posting a prayer to St. Genevieve. The accompanying photographs of the Chapel and tomb of St. Genevieve at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris are courtesy of Cav. Charles Sant’Elia. Evviva St. Genevieve!

Prayer to St. Genevieve

Saint Genevieve, you who, through days of penance and prayer, ensured the protection of Paris, intercede with God for us, for our country, and all devoted Christian hearts. You who cured the sick and fed the hungry, obtain for us the light of God, and make us strong to reject temptation. You who cared for the poor, protect the sick, the abandoned, and the unemployed. You who resisted armies and encouraged the besieged, guide us in the ways of truth and justice. You who, through the centuries, have never ceased caring for your people, help us to keep the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. May your example encourage us always to seek God and serve Him through our brothers and sisters. Amen.

A Forgotten Stone Knight: Jacquelin de Ferrière at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

It has come to my attention that I inadvertently omitted this photograph of the tomb effigy of Jacquelin de Ferrière from my recent coverage of a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While the image itself may not be exceptional, it offers an opportunity to honor the noble inheritance of medieval Christendom.

Dated between 1275 and 1300, the limestone slab depicts the French knight from Montargis in northern France, shown in full mail armor and tunic. His hands are folded across his chest in the posture of Christian repose, while horseshoes (fers-de-cheval), a visual pun on his name, adorn his shield, asserting lineage, identity, and the chivalric order to which he belonged.

The Vigil and Feast of the Epiphany at St. Margaret of Cortona Church in the Bronx, New York

January 2, 2026

A Resolution for the New Year: Truth, Resistance, and the Care of the Soul

Landscape with Two Soldiers and Ruins, c.1650, oil on canvas,
Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

“Clarity is the reward of the vanquished.” ~ Nicolás Gómez Dávila, The Authentic Reactionary

The new year arrives without illusions. We will not greet it with plastic optimism, nor with the forced cheer of a civilization willfully submitting to its own destruction. Positivity, if it is to mean anything at all, must be rooted in truth. And the truth is stark: much of the world we knew has vanished. Customs, institutions, moral language, even the visible structure of the Church have been hollowed out or inverted. There is no gain in pretending otherwise.

This year, our resolution is not to lie to ourselves. We will refuse the narcotic of false hope—the kind that demands we say things are “getting better” simply because acknowledging decay is considered impolite or extremist. We will look directly at what is broken: the incoherence, the hypocrisy, the endless moral fraud, the rituals without belief, the words emptied of meaning. We will not waste our remaining strength arguing with lies that are not disagreement, but the inversion of reality itself. Silence, withdrawal, and detachment can sometimes be more powerful than debate.

And yet—resignation is not our vocation. To accept reality is not to surrender to it. To see clearly is not to lie down. If this decadent civilization insists on destroying itself, we will not assist it by passivity or despair. We will deny it our complicity. If we are to be crushed beneath it, then its victory will not be comfortable. We will resist by constancy, by memory, by stubborn refusal to internalize its values or repeat its slogans. Even small acts of resistance—truth spoken plainly, traditions kept alive in private, children raised rightly, prayers said without apology—can wound an enemy that survives on universal assent.

But the primary battlefield is not external at all. This year, above all, we resolve to tend our interior life. To rebuild inwardly what has been desecrated outwardly. To recover silence, discipline, prayer, fasting, and reverence. To take seriously the reality of sin, judgment, grace, and salvation—realities that do not disappear simply because the age finds them inconvenient. As the world descends, our task is ascent. As the age grows noisier, we cultivate silence. As everything is politicized, we seek transcendence.

We will measure success not by visibility, influence, or approval, but by fidelity. Not by outcomes, but by obedience. The saints were not optimists. They were realists—men and women who knew the world was fallen, the powers hostile, and the road narrow. They did not conquer by pretending; they endured by believing.

This is our resolution: to live without illusion, without cowardice, and without despair. To accept the ruins, but not make peace with them. To fight where fighting is required, to withdraw where withdrawal is wiser, and to kneel always before God.

The year ahead may offer little comfort. That is acceptable. Comfort was never promised. What is promised—if we remain faithful—is truth, meaning, and salvation. And that is enough.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, January 1st, Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord

New Book — The Routledge Handbook of the History of Naples since the Middle Ages

A forthcoming title that may be of interest to our readers. Available at Amazon.com

• The Routledge Handbook of the History of Naples since the Middle Ages by Alida Clemente, Amedeo Feniello, and Paolo Frascani

Publisher: Routledge
Publication date: April 10, 2026
Hardcover: $300.00
Kindle: $285.00
Language: English
Pages: 600

Read description

Click here to see more books

Listing does not imply any endorsement

The Epiphany of the Lord at St. Mary of Mt. Virgin Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey

January 1, 2026

A Prayer for Crans-Montana

St. Bernard of Montjoux, ora pro nobis

We offer our prayers and sincere condolences for the victims of the deadly fire during a New Year celebration at a bar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. The loss of life, the suffering, and the devastation weigh heavily on our hearts. May St. Florian, St. Nicholas of Flüe, St. Bernard of Montjoux, and the Madonna del Sasso protect and watch over you.

Prayer for Comfort and Healing

Our Father, in this time of loss and sorrow, we seek Your comforting embrace. Heal the wounds of all who have been touched by this tragedy. Restore hope to the afflicted, strength to the weary, and peace to those who mourn. Guide them through the darkness toward light, and grant resilience as they rebuild what has been lost. In Your mercy, we place our trust. Amen.

Quiet Assurances of January

The Adoration of the Magi

Neapolitan School*

January opens the year with spectacle, yet not without meaning. Its light is restrained, but there is a steadiness to the month that rewards those who attend to it. Where December reveals, January teaches how to keep what has been revealed.

The month begins not only with the civil turning of the year, but with the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord (January 1st), the first shedding of Christ’s blood and His submission to the Law. It is an often forgotten feast, yet it sets the character of the month: redemption enters history not with triumph, but with obedience, pain, and fidelity carried out in silence.

The season of Christmas still endures, and at its heart stands the Epiphany (January 6th): Christ made known to the nations, not as a private consolation but as universal Lord. The homage of the Magi is sober and prophetic. Their gifts acknowledge glory, divinity, and suffering together. January thus reminds us that truth, once manifested, must be lived patiently in a world slow to receive it.

The cold remains firm, the earth does not yet yield, but this persistence is not hostile—it is formative. Growth continues unseen. What appears dormant is being strengthened at the root. January does not hurry renewal; it protects it.

The Feast of Sant’Antonio Abate (January 17th) sanctifies the month’s austerity. Father of the desert, master of ordered withdrawal and disciplined detachment, he teaches that clarity comes through restraint. His fire is not destructive but sustaining—a guarded flame against chaos. In him, January affirms that discipline is not negation, but care of the soul.

Thus the month advances with measured confidence. It asks less enthusiasm and more constancy. It does not promise immediate warmth, but it offers something more reliable: order restored, perspective regained, hope purified of illusion.

The month also remembers the death of King Louis XVI (January 21st), a ruler brought to the scaffold not for tyranny, but for embodying an order the modern world resolved to erase. His fate stands as a warning, but also as a testimony: that legitimacy, once lost publicly, may still be preserved inwardly through dignity, prayer, and submission to God’s judgment rather than man’s applause.

Coming to a close, January offers a gentler witness in the feast of Blessed Maria Cristina di Savoia (January 31st). Young, pious, and formidable in charity, she governed herself before she governed others. Beloved as la Reginella Santa di Napoli, she spent her brief life in works of mercy and died at twenty-three, having given birth to Francesco II, the future and last King of the Two Sicilies. Her sanctity—domestic, hidden, resolute—softens January’s severity without weakening it.

January’s consolation is understated but real. It steadies the soul, reminding us that perseverance itself is a grace—and that light, once given, is not lost simply because the days remain cold.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, December 31st, Feast of San Silvestro I

* The Adoration of the Magi, tempera on wood, gold ground, ca. 1340-43, Neapolitan follower of Giotto (active second third of the 14th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of New York Scugnizzo.

A New Year’s Day Reflection on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by John Howe (1995)

“Why should I hesitate? Against a hard and dire fate what can a man do but try?” ~ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, author unknown, as spoken by Sir Gawain

Thematically fitting for New Year’s Day, we’re taking this opportunity to reflect on the anonymous late fourteenth-century romance poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A masterpiece of Middle English poetry, it is a must-read for anyone interested in chivalry, medieval romance, and the Matter of Britain, particularly the Arthurian legends. If you haven’t done so already, we highly recommend finding a copy and delving in. Continue reading