From Sicily to Lombardy, among secular processions, handed-down gestures and tables: Italy celebrates Easter as a choral story of faith, culture and identity.
Easter in Italy is not just a religious celebration. It is a story that crosses the centuries, a mosaic of rites, symbols and flavors that changes face from region to region but retains a unique, deep soul: that of rebirth.
From the villages of the hinterland to the historic centers of the big cities, Holy Week turns into a stage of spirituality and folklore. A perfect interweaving between liturgy and popular culture, where faith meets tradition and the past continues to live in the gestures of each community.
Holy Week rites: an Italy that prays and walks
One of the most heartfelt moments is undoubtedly Holy Thursday, with the visit to the so-called Sepulchres, the altars of the repositioning carefully set up in the churches. It is a symbolic gesture, which represents the vigil next to Christ at the moment of the Passion. In cities like Naples, Rome and Palermo, it is still customary to visit seven churches as a sign of devotion, a practice that has its roots in the 16th century and which Pope Pius V popularized during the Counter-Reformation.
Good Friday, on the other hand, is the spiritual heart of Italian Easter. In many villages and cities there are suggestive processions of the Dead Christ, which combine theatricality and mysticism. In Chieti, in Abruzzo, one of the oldest processions in Italy is celebrated, documented since 842 AD: the participants, hooded and in dark clothes, march accompanied by the poignant notes of the Miserere di Selecchy. An experience of intense emotional participation that attracts every year thousands of visitors and faithful.
In Enna, in the heart of Sicily, takes place one of the most spectacular sacred representations of southern Italy: more than two thousand confreres in traditional clothes parade for hours along the streets of the city, in a ritual that combines drama and spirituality and which has been entered into the Register of Intangible Heritage of the Sicilian Region.
Symbols and gestures of rebirth
Easter is also the time of symbols, many of which recall nature and the cycle of life. The blessed olive tree – distributed on Palm Sunday – is a sign of peace, but also of continuity between heaven and earth. The eggs, now packaged in chocolate, sink their roots into pagan cults linked to fertility, then Christianized as an emblem of the burying that opens.
There is no lack of domestic gestures: in Umbria, for example, the habit of preparing “Easter pizza”, a savory bread enriched with cheese and pepper, to be brought to church for the blessing of food, is still alive. In many families of the South of Italy are set up real dinners of the Passion with poor and symbolic dishes – such as broad beans and chicory – in memory of the Last Supper.
Villages protagonists: spirituality and beauty
Many small Italian towns live Easter as the highest time of the year, where spirituality is intertwined with the beauty of places. In Sorrento, on the Amalfi Coast, the night processions – the white and the black – transform the village into a sacred path between torches and silence, with confraternities parading to the rhythm of ancient nenie.
In Sulmona, in Abruzzo, the Easter Sunday explodes in a rite of joy with Our Lady running away, when the statue of the Virgin runs towards the risen Christ between bullets and petals. A unique rite that celebrates the joy of the resurrection and involves the entire citizenry
Tradition to be enjoyed
The Easter table is the mirror of our cultural identity. From the Neapolitan casatiello to the Ligurian pasqualina cake, from the pastiera to the Romagna donut, each dish tells a family story, of seasonality, of faith.
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