The rites of passion
by Antonino Fiorentino

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection as well as the festival for spring, the rites of the seasonal passage. Pasqua (Easter) the name itself gives us the idea of this seasonal transition. It was infact, derived from the Aramaic “pasha” meaning “Passage”. During the Holy Week, the memory of God resurrects with  the symbolism of nature reawakening. It is not by chance that Easter, like all other similar  holidays in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world, falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the 21st March.  It is therefore inside the Spring Equinox - when nature is reborn from its winter hibernation  and the cycle of Mass turns towards the season of blossoming and harvesting. This symbolises death and re-birth, darkness and light, which can be seen during the “functions” of Holy Week: in the rites of the “Sepulchres” prepared on Holy Thursday, in which the pale grain is grown in the dark church, decorated in the colours of mourning for the death of Christ. But above all the symbol is seen in the Procession  on Holy Friday when the black  shape of the Mourning Mother attends the funeral, like an icon of pain, on the bloodless body of God Incarnate. In a few Mediterranean towns, the Passion scene celebrates its splendour in chorus, igniting  the entire Sorrentine Peninsular  like a secret musical score. Every town in turn has its own variation of the death and resurrection theme and from these differences, flourishes an ancient union. In Sorrento’s Passion of Rites, a  constant Presence emerges in great length with little variation  during the course of time. First, the colour: the contrast  between black and white represent  the first presence of the sacred representation  in which the symbols of The Passion become a tale and the history of the event goes into the collective memory.  As constant as this Presence, is  the wrong will of participation,  shown as a sign of devotion and penance together. Widening the geographical field of the Sorrentine Peninsular, it is possible to pick up changes of the Presence which are evident by the colour of the clothes - more than black and white, red and violet- theintroduction of figures in ancient Roman costume, giving a historical characterization more eloquent and closer to evangelical stories. However, they distance themselves from the tone that was introduced in the 17 Century, here on the Peninsula in the presence of the Jesuits. The psalms in the procession also vary. If S. Agnello’s procession moves on a wave of grave beating music, the procession in Piano moves to a slow step, almost reciting “Officium tenebrarum”. The Whites of Meta tune-up in a high voice”Cantus Firmus”, while The Blacks of Massa Lubrense seem to be a choir of warlike monks at the point of breaking out in a Dies irae. The White Procession of Sorrento marches up and down throughout the night, and from the distance, the banner emerges of the Black Procession of Sorrento, with the dark insignia of death dissolving in the clear fluorescence of the Mediterranean night. While the sore covered body of Christ is lovingly carried on the shoulder and prepared with feminine grace on carpets of flowers and lace, it makes us think of an anatomy of the collective passion, in which the mourning is married to the aesthetics of the community - the “compassion” means, suffer together. Also in the variation and the constant Presence, the Passion rites on The Peninsula is the mirror of an atavistic  faith that is shown with intent, like a heritage that is handed down togeneration after generation.

This text recalls the preface, written by Marino Niola, which is reproduced in many extracts, from the work “Gli Incappucciati” by Gianfranco Capodilupo, and allows us this reproduction.