CLARKENWELL LITTLE ITALY

Also once known as Italian Hill, the boundaries of London’s Italian quarters are recognised as Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue. As well as the Italian church of St Peter’s, there are several local shops and services run by members of the Italian community, but the number of these premises is declining. The greatest concentration of Italians in the area was around the end of the nineteenth century. Before this, the Saffron Hill vicinity had been notorious for the pickpockets and fences portrayed in Oliver Twist and the authorities were glad to see these supplanted by the more respectable Italians. London’s Italian population is now spread more thinly throughout the capital, but Sunday worship at St Peter’s still provides a focal point. The Processione della Madonna del Carmine, held on the Sunday after July 16th, is Little Italy’s most important event. Except during wartime it has taken place every year since 1896.
Every year Italian immigrants from all over London and England reunite for the Procession of the Madonna del Carmine to take the saints originating from their home villages from the Church to the streets to celebrate them. The mass and moments after are very sacred, with a lot of donations, especially from pious women come especially to touch and praise the saints, essential moment in their spiritual fulfilment. The ore surrounding these Italian faces transplanted to Britain forty to fifty years ago is unique as approach the clay statues to prays and cherish the moments after their donations, before the leave for the procession. It is then the men’s turn to hoist them on their shoulders and slowly carry them round the neighbourhood, as they have done for the past 100 and odd years.
London streets stop for half a day in Clerkenwell to the 2000 odd “pilgrims” and their saints, followed by procession floats in costume and looked on by another 2000 people, passer bys and those who for some reasons decided not to take part directly. The floats are a rare site in the UK because of the young people on them re-enacting scenes from the bible, the apostles, angels and a Madonna are paraded as the Pope himself, at the head of the float procession, with cardinals around him.

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