Sicilian Easter in the Register of Intangible Heritage of Sicily (REIS)

There are 17 Sicilian municipalities that until now have seen their initiatives recognized on the occasion of Easter, in the register of the REIS Regional Intangible Heritage. In reality, many other places could aspire to this recognition, given that the Rites of Holy Week have been substantially present, for many centuries now, in almost all the municipalities of Sicily with significant involvement of the population. 

List of assets recognized in the REIS:

  • Holy Week and Vare in Caltanissetta and San Cataldo - CL (The Mysteries)
  • Holy Week in Biancavilla - CT (in sira dei tri Misteri)
  • Good Friday procession in Enna - EN
  • Holy Week in Barrafranca - EN 
  • Holy Week and Easter - Aidone - EN
  • Holy Week in Ispica - RG
  • Celebrations and Rites of Holy Week in Scicli - RG  
  • Holy Week in Ragusa Ibla - RG
  • Representation of Good Friday in Vittoria - RG (The parties ro Signuri)
  • Sacred Representations of Holy Week in Capaci (PA)
  • Procession of the Mysteries of Good Friday in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME)
  • Arches of Pani (San Biagio Platani) - AG
  • Festival of li Schietti in Terrasini (PA)
  • Feast of the Devil and Angelicata in Adrano - CT (I Diavulazzi i Easter)
  • Fanfare of the Jews San a Fratello (ME)
  • Feast of the Risen Christ King in Scicli - RG (Feast of the Omu vivu o 'u Joy)
  • Religious singing: La Santa Cruci in Riesi - CL 
  • Lu Signuri di li Fasci in Pietraperzia - EN 

Below is a brief description extracted, when existing from the regional technical sheets, of the assets included in the REIS. For more information, access the files inserted in the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

 

Holy Week and Going to Caltanissetta and San Cataldo (The Mysteries)

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The procession of the Real Maestranza, which takes place on Holy Wednesday, with its eighteenth-century origins, was declared royal in 1806 at the behest of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon who, on a visit to the city, impressed by the grandeur of the procession, granted the Maestranza the title of " Real".
Historical sources on the Varicedde procession on Wednesday afternoon attest to its origins in the early 1923th century. In 19, some families offered a contribution for the realization of the 10 sculptural groups that went to increase the original nucleus consisting of XNUMX Varicedde.
The origin of the Holy Thursday procession is older. This derives from the ancient ceremony of the Cinque Barette (o Casazza) carried out by the Congregation of S. Filippo Neri, which that same night left its seat, with five small groups of statues, to visit the tombs of the city. Since the 1882th century, the celebration of the Mysteries has taken place in Caltanissetta. Originally the Vare were only seven but over time they expanded to become fourteen in the second half of the nineteenth century, when it was decided to grant the statuary groups to the main city workers. Starting from XNUMX, the celebration saw a strengthening of the interest of the local community, with the commissioning by the Zolfatari of Gessolungo of a new monumental group, the Veronica, as an act of thanks to the escaped danger. From that moment other groups were created or renewed at the behest of private individuals.

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily 

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Holy Week - Biancavilla (a sira dei tri Misteri)

Historical information regarding the Good Friday procession, better known as "to the sire of the three Mysteries". This term was born to indicate the three groups of statues that were initially carried in procession: the Ecce Homo, the Christ at the Column and the Dead Christ.
The procession was presumably born around the second half of 1600, following the foundation of the first town archconfraternity of the SS. Sacrament. According to tradition, it was this that carried the current wooden statue of the dead Christ in procession, whose movable arms suggest that the simulacrum was originally used for the deposition of Christ from the Cross inside the current case that contains it. The other two statues were made by the local sculptor and priest Placido Portale before 1727, the year of his death. The other statuary groups of the Addolorata, of Christ carrying the cross, of Jesus in the garden, of the Pietà and of the Torch were introduced into the procession over the centuries.
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Good Friday procession in Enna - EN
Procession of Good Friday-Enna2
The Good Friday Procession is the culmination of Easter rites in Enna. Through the streets of the city, all ups and downs and winding alleys, about two thousand five hundred hooded brothers parade in silence, equipped with torches and candles to illuminate the path suggestively. In addition to the people of Enna, many devotees and tourists come to the city to watch the great procession. Not surprisingly, the Good Friday Procession of Enna is considered a sacred event with international tourist appeal and the Holy Week of Enna is a heritage protected by Unesco.
The sacred rites are initiated by the celebration of the "Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ" which is held in the Cathedral and in all the parish churches. It consists in the "Liturgy of the Word" which culminates in the reading of the Gospel passage of the "Passion of the Lord" according to John. Adoration of the Cross follows.
The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily 
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Holy Week in Barrafranca - EN 
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The Holy Week of Barrafranca presents a rich program of religious events of a very suggestive and ancient character. The first of these takes place on the evening of Holy Wednesday with the living and itinerant representation of the trial of Jesus, the death sentence and the crucifixion, called In Vasacra (Way of the cross). Then, on the evening of Holy Thursday, the faithful go to visit the churches for the adoration of the SS. Sacrament placed in the traditional "Repositori", called i Sabburca. Good Friday is certainly the most eventful day of Holy Week: in the morning the procession of Our Lady of Sorrows takes place, dressed in black and placed on a canopy of velvet and flowers, carried on the shoulders only by girls; in the evening, at the end of the liturgical celebration of the "Adoration of the Cross", the exciting procession of the fercolo of the SS. Crucifix, called by the locals U Trunu, preceded by an urn containing the dead Christ and the Madonna Addolorata.
The Barrese Holy Week ends on Easter Sunday, when the bells ring in celebration to announce the meeting of the risen Christ with the Madonna and the Apostles (the Santoni). This meeting is called "La Giunta" (To gjunta).
The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily 
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Holy Week and Easter - Aidone - EN
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The rite of Holy Week in Aidone, in particular the rite of Easter Sunday, has been taking place for centuries in the main square of the city and consists of a real scenic act of religious inspiration that is to be traced back to the years of the Counter-Reformation, during the XVII century, when Sicily, under the Spanish influence, was the protagonist of a strong process of re-Christianization of the population. In fact, there are numerous similarities with similar Andalusian religious manifestations in Spain which include the presence of these real giants.
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 Holy Week in Ispica - RG
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The origins of the Holy Week in Ispica probably date back to the XNUMXth century AD, when tradition has it that a wooden crucifix was venerated in the small church of Santa Maria della Cava, which still exists today. In the wake of this story, today's simulacrum of the SS. Christ incorporates the face and the hands of that Crucifix, escaped from the iconoclastic destructions. Over time, the wooden work was combined with a group of three statues with a silvery-golden machine, by the artisan of Noto, Francesco Guarino.
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Celebrations and Rites of Holy Week in Scicli - RG  
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There are several historical information regarding the rites of the Holy Week of Scicli, a festival that is deeply felt and participated by the entire population, the first information of which dates back to the first half of the XNUMXth century. Since the past, as today, the feast of Easter in Scicli had its center in the church of S. Maria la Nova and took place in four stages: the unveiling of the simulacrum of the Risen Christ the King at the end of the vigil on the night between Saturday and Easter Sunday, the Holy representation on Sunday morning, the Eucharistic procession, the procession with the statues of the Risen Christ and Our Lady of Pietà.
 
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Holy Week - Ragusa Ibla - RG

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The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

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Representation of Good Friday in Vittoria - RG (The parties ro Signuri)

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The fervor of the faithful characterizes the mood of the participants in the rites of Vittoria's Good Friday.
In the morning, through the streets of the Ragusa town, the procession of the dead Christ takes place together with the simulacrum of S. Maria Addolorata, organized by the congregation of the SS. Crucifix since 1657, handing it down and keeping it overall unchanged over time. This first devotional moment ends with the representation of the "descent of the cross", Known to the local population as"The partiesro Signuri ".
The scenography of the sacred scene is the eight-columned, circular temple called "Calvary", decorated with majolica depicting the scenes of the passion and death of Christ, in which they had accompanied the simulacrum of the dead Christ carried in procession in the morning. The drama of passion, recited in popular dialect, enriched the historical procession from 1669. The actors, dressed in period costumes, recite the 450 loose hendecasyllable verses that make up the writing "The sacred drama of Good Friday”Of the Marquis Alfonso Ricca, still in use today.
 

 

 
Sacred Representations of Holy Week in Capaci (PA)
Sacred Representations of Holy Week
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Procession of the Mysteries of Good Friday in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME)
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The procession of mysteries, statue groups representing some salient episodes of the Passion of Christ, is presumably of Spanish origin and dates back to the XNUMXth century.
In 1835, the two villages of the province of Messina, Barcellona and Pozzo di Gotto, merged into a single municipality, maintaining their own traditional procession for each. Even today, in fact, two similar processions take place on Good Friday, of which that of Pozzo di Gotto is older, while that of Barcelona is more recent, as it appears by emulation of the previous one and can be dated to 1871, when, on the initiative of the church of San Giovanni, some Barcelona families decided to finance the construction of the varettes (this is how the statuary groups are called).
 
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Arches of Pani (San Biagio Platani) - AG

The origin of the festival dates back to the mid-seventeenth century, when the town was founded. Originally the tradition would seem to have taken place from the use of hanging bread donuts (cudduri) to the balconies to be blessed with the passage of the Madonna and the Risen Christ.

Every year, on Easter Sunday, in the small town of Agrigento, a challenge is celebrated between the devotees of the Madonna, who belong to the brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament and the devotees of the dead Christ who belong to the brotherhood of the Blessed Rosary. The competition consists in setting up enormous scaffolding that form the architectural backdrop to the encounter between the Mother and the Risen Son on Easter day. Along the main street of the town, where the Mother Church rises from which the statues will come out, two monumental arches are set up which divide the surrounding space into two distinct areas of relevance. The arches are made on plant structures of ferule and reeds and covered with loaves, citrus fruits, bay leaves, dates, flowers and rosemary. Their preparation began a few weeks earlier, transforming the town into a large construction site where men devote themselves to large scaffolding, while women create the figurative elements. Along the surface of these grandiose and spectacular ephemeral architectures, a series of figurative paintings with sacred subjects follow one another. Zoomorphic figures prevail: fish and butterflies, eagles and cockerels, doves and lambs but there are also angels, stars, hearts and monstrances. On these small bas-relief paintings made of bread, a recurring subject is the facade of the Mother Church. To give more shine to the compositions, the loaves are glazed with a bright white, obtained from the mixture of egg white and sugar and take the name of murmured. They are arranged on the arches over a thick layer of cooked donuts without egg white, amidst carnations and other red flowers. Very long sequences of oranges frame the compositions. Other loaves depict biblical episodes and scenes from the Via Crucis, but also rose windows and medallions that reproduce the four seasons, swallow's nests with real moss inside, haystacks with dry stone bases, bunches of grapes and fruit baskets. Of bread are the capitals of the columns and the same coat of arms of the Municipality that stands out high on the architectural elevations.

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

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Festival of li Schietti in Terrasini (PA)

party-blunt

The Feast of li frank, takes place on Easter Sunday, and consists of the raising in the palm of one hand, of a melangolo, orange airu (bitter orange), a tree chosen both for its resistance and for its thaumaturgical and medical properties, weighing about 50 kilos, as proof of the physical prowess of its bearers. The winner will be the one who has held the shaft up for the longest possible time. Participants wear the typical Sicilian costume consisting of black velvet trousers and vest, white shirt, red scarf, red pompoms that act as a tie and a red cap.

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

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Feast of the Devil and Angelicata in Adrano - CT (I Diavulazzi i Easter)

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The representation of the drama dates back to the eighteenth century, the century in which Don Anselmo Laudani wrote the work. Angelicata, which represents the second part of the opera, has only been staged since 1980.

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

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Fanfare of the Jews San a Fratello (ME)

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San Fratello was founded by integrating the Greek-Latin inhabitants with immigrants who came in the wake of the Lombards from Casale Monferrato with Adelaide or Adelasia degli Aleramici, from the Alto Novarese, from France and from Lombardy, in the twelfth century. In this town of the Nebrodi various elements of ancient origin remain unchanged, such as the Gallo-Italic dialect, pagan, carnival and Christian rituals. For example, in the period of Holy Week - one that is richer in events that reconcile the dramatic moment of Christ's passion with the joyful moment of the Resurrection - in San Fratello, to celebrate the expectation of the Resurrection we find a unique event of its kind, namely the " Fanfare of the Jews ”. Conducted on Wednesday, Thursday and Good Friday, the feast of profane origin, it recalls the moment in which the Jews beat and led Christ to Calvary. Scholars disagree on the origin of the festival, defining "the Jews" now as proponents of a "devil" or "hellish jumble" (Pitre), now as "disturbing figures" deriving from sacred medieval representations (Rubino - Cocchiara).

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

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Feast of the Risen Christ King in Scicli - RG (Feast of the Omu vivu o 'u Joy)

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Although we do not have precise information on the origin of the feast of the Risen Christ the King of Scicli, an episcopal decree provides a date on which it was already in use to carry a statue of the Risen Christ in procession, it is April 16, 1688 and there is talk of a license in order to carry out the procession of the SS. Sacrament on Easter day from S. Maria La Piazza to the Church of S. Maria La Nova where the blessing would take place, followed by the translation of the statue of the Risen Christ. According to the authorizations for the processions, a statue of the Risen Christ must have been there until 1693, but it had to be destroyed in the earthquake since from 1694 there is no news of it. After the earthquake, in fact, only the procession of the SS will take place for several years. Sacrament.
A procession of the Risen Christ is again referred to in 1731; there would therefore be two simulacra preceding the one carried in procession today; the first reference to the current statue can be found in an inventory relating to the handover between the collegiate church and the administration of the Busacca inheritance of 24 December 1799, of which the statue was part.

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

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Religious singing: La Santa Cruci in Riesi - CL 

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Notary documents of the Municipality of Riesi attest to the presence of lay brotherhoods engaged in spreading complaints since the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The squads of lamenters were strongly linked to the brotherhoods until, in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the disappearance of the latter, they began to be made up of people from all walks of life, including peasants and above all sulfarai, who, starting from 1850 and for almost a century and a half, were the organizers of the festive event.
Some historical and bibliographical references indicate how important this festival was for the sulfarai, who self-taxed on their March wages to celebrate the feast of Good Friday at their expense with music, firecrackers, illuminations and long processions. In fact, a connection can be identified between the manifestation of the sacred rite of search, the relentless search for his son on the streets of the town by the Addolorata, and the dangerous activity of the sulfarai, which forced women to experience moments of despair after the disasters that occurred in the mines, in search of information about their children and husbands. Good Friday was also the only weekday of the year in which i sulfarai they did not go down to the mines.

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

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Lu Signuri di li Fasci in Pietraperzia - EN 

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The documents and sources dealing with the origins of the Good Friday procession of Pietraperzia are scarce and fragmentary.
The historian Frà Dionigi in his "Critical-historical report of the prodigious invention of an image of Maria SS. commonly called the Quarry of Pietrapercia”Published in 1776 talking about the Chiesa del Carmine and the brotherhood of Maria SS. del Soccorso wrote "that other (altar) of the SS. Crucifix of ancient Religion in the Public, especially in the days of Parasceve, when one goes around this country in procession; is not of lesser magnificence”Attesting that the cult of the Crucifix can be dated to that date.
However, the first documents attesting the procession to Pietraperzia, which can be found in the State Archives of Palermo, date back to 1828 and 1839. In the first document, permission is granted to the Confraternity of Maria Santissima del Soccorso to perform the Good Friday procession in the afternoon hours: "[...] since it is customary to carry out the procession of the Most Holy Crucifix on Good Friday after lunch every year, which, leaving the church of the Fathers of the third order, goes around the streets of that Municipality from 22 pm to midnight , representing the figure of Calvary for the memory of the faithful [...]". In the second, further permission is granted to carry out the procession of the Crucifix, following it by the fercolo of Maria Santissima Addolorata.
Further data that help to reconstruct the history of the procession are the copper plate, made by the Pietrino artist Cosimo Adamo, and various documents that form an integral part of the archive of the brotherhood. Through these it is possible to state that after 1860 the procession of Lu Signuri di them bundles it existed more or less as it is currently represented.

The sheet on the Data Bank of the Intangible Heritage of Sicily

All photos were taken from the web

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