The Giants of Mistretta (Messina)

The Giants of Mistretta (a Sicilian town of the province of Messina), called in dialect Gesanti are two huge puppets made of wood and papier-mâché (they are empty inside in order to be “worn” by the carriers) built in the late eighteenth century on the model of the giants of Messina. Today, after a careful restoration, the original giants parade through the streets of the city. From 1960 to 1990, however, the inhabitants of Mistretta have used copies. The giants of Mistretta, which also differ from those of Messina for the smaller size and the fact of not being equestrian statues, share many elements with them: warrior clothing, mythological genealogy (both male giants are identified with the Titan Cronus – Saturn) and a legendary origin (the two pairs of primordial giants are considered the founders of the two cities). The influence of Messina is to be found also in the name of the “giantess” of the people of Mistretta: the companion of the Saturn of Messina is called Mata, that of the Cronus of Mistretta is known as Mitya. In many historical and literary narratives the choice of such a common name, is not attributable to mythological vocabulary, is justified by the desire to create a point of contact with the city, of which the giantess should either represent the most popular expression or the nobler soul (the legend of Messina, in fact, identifies Mata sometimes with a commoner, at other times with a local princess). Every year the Gesanti are carried in procession during the Feast of the Madonna della Luce, the Madonna of Light, which is held in the town of Monti Nebrodi on the 7th and 8th of September. Their faces hide a dual identity. Cronos and Mitya, in fact, are both considered the legendary founders of the city and of its lineage or as two patron saints. It is said that their giant bones were found in a cave next to a bright picture of the Madonna, of which they are considered the guardians. At least two grand narratives of family origins are intertwined in this tangled family history: one, which tells of the first inhabitants of the Earth, the mythic and superhuman founders of humanity; the other, which refers to the biblical claims about the existence of the legendary giants before and after the Great Flood. The small giant present in some sources of the past, but which has now disappeared, would, instead, have linked the giants of Mistretta to other Italian and European figures.

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