Anyone browsing through the countless souvenir shops in Rome can hardly miss the calendario romano. The “Rome Calendar”, colloquially known as the hot priest calendar, contains twelve black and white photos of attractive pastors or young men in a church context. Some look straight into the lens, others were captured for eternity during a Catholic procession.
To the amusement of many Romans, the friendly smiling young man on the cover of the calendar – like many of the photos in the calendar itself – has been the same for years. That’s why it was rumored that the fresh cover boy is a pastor in Milan, now 84 years old.
It is an urban legend, because Giovanni Galizia is 37 years old today and comes from Palermo, Sicilian. He was 17 when the photo was taken, and he has never been a priest. Galizia works as a steward for an airline. After twenty years, the calendario romano, balancing between the sacred and the secular, still appears to be a hit with tourists. The calendar would also score well in the gay community.
Giovanni Galizia, geen priester maar steward. — © Piero Pazzi
Gondoliers
The creator and inventor of the calendar is Piero Pazzi, photographer and hobby archivist from Venice. He tells De Standaard that he is also curator of two museums about cats. “Sexy pastors?” he says, with – probably mock – surprise. “My main goal with this calendar was to help tourists who wander around aimlessly in Rome find their way around the Eternal City. The calendar therefore also contains information about the Vatican and other important points, such as pharmacies, in several languages.”
Before he made a calendar with only pastors, Pazzi photographed one in Venice together with gondoliers. “That calendar also contains useful information about what exactly a gondola is and where you can ride the gondola for a few minutes for just 2 euros, so without having to pay for it,” says Pazzi.
Why did he choose twelve pastors in Rome, or at least young men in priestly garb or in a church context? “Because Rome is known for its antiquity, as the political power center of Italy, and as the center of the world Catholic Church. I don’t think the institutions of the Italian government deserve to be presented positively, but I wanted to do that with the church.” Young priests, he says, are demonstrating “an eye toward the future, not the past.”
“Message counts”
The Vatican has never responded positively or negatively, but only stated that the black and white priests’ calendar “is not an official publication of the Vatican.”
© Piero Pazzi
Photographer Pazzi says he does not know how many calendars are sold annually, because he is purely concerned with the artistic aspect. He puts it at “several thousand” copies sold. His subjects gave him permission to use the photos freely. The photos of young men during processions were mainly taken in Seville, southern Spain.
Whether there is even one real pastor among them is a question that Pazzi cleverly avoids. “Does that matter? A photographer is a painter of the modern era. Velázquez painted the young Madonna, but did he ever really see the Virgin? What mattered was the message that was conveyed. That is no different today.”
2024-02-06 09:25:45
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