{"id":6579,"date":"2021-08-20T00:03:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T22:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/sacre-rappresentazioni\/"},"modified":"2021-11-23T15:28:33","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T14:28:33","slug":"sacre-rappresentazioni","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/themes\/festivals\/sacre-rappresentazioni\/","title":{"rendered":"The mystery plays in Southern Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The mystery plays in Southern Italy <\/h1>\n<div class=\"testo\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/giovedi__santo_di_marsala.0040-0-__fileminimizer__251x181.jpg\" width=\"251\" height=\"181\" alt=\"Gioved\u00ec Santo Marsala2\" align=\"left\">The Church of Rome celebrated the Passion of Christ with an air of drama and theatre from the early Easter liturgies and the oldest forms of devotion. Not surprisingly, the name by which most of the religious processions that take place during Holy Week in Southern Italy are still called (the famous procession of the <em><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/misteri\/\" title=\"Misteri\">Misteri<\/a>,<\/em> Mysteries), is the same name used in the past to denote the medieval mystery plays (staged actions on a religious theme performed on the sidelines of the Mass, in correspondence with the principal ecclesiastical solemnities). In Molise, even today, the &#8220;machines&#8221; that parade during the <a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/campobasso\/\" title=\"Campobasso\"><em>Corpus Christi<\/em> of Campobasso<\/a> are called mysteries. It is interesting to note that even the <a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/giants\/\" title=\"Giants\">processional Giants<\/a> marches began in Europe as part of the feast of the Blessed Sacrament of Christ. They are huge papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 and wood puppets, which in Sicily are also found in the form of huge statues depicting the Apostles. The latter perform on Easter Sunday, when, in different locations, the announcement of the Resurrection of Christ is staged. The word <em>Misteri<\/em>, therefore, used originally to denote the sacred plays, then became a synonym for the extra-liturgical Easter rites recalling the Passion of Christ. The term <em>Misteri<\/em>, in fact, is associated with both processions with living people (formerly known as <em><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/sacre-rappresentazioni\/the-casazze\/\" title=\"The Casazze\">Casazze<\/a><\/em> in Sicily),&nbsp; those which include a parade of symbols (chalice, cock, nails, stairs, shroud, scourges, thorns, Veronica&#8217;s veil, the Holy Cross, etc.) and groups of statues depicting scenes from the Passion (known in Sicily as <em><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-vare-in-sicily\/\" title=\"The Vare in Sicily\">vare<\/a><\/em>, in Spain as <em><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-holy-week-of-seville\/the-pasos-of-holy-week-in-seville\/\" title=\"The pasos of Holy Week in Seville\">pasos<\/a><\/em> or <em><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-holy-week-of-malaga\/the-tronos-of-the-holy-week-of-malaga\/\" title=\"The Tronos of the Holy Week of Malaga\">tronos<\/a><\/em>, in Abruzzo as <em><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-holy-week-in-abruzzo\/\" title=\"The Holy Week in Abruzzo\">talami<\/a><\/em>). In many cases, the current processions of the <em>Misteri<\/em> (which are mainly held Thursday and Friday, but sometimes even on the first days of the week) combine these three types of ceremonials (in <a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-holy-week-in-sardegna\/\" title=\"The Holy Week in Sardegna\">Sardinia<\/a>, for example, in the province of <a href=\"\/en\/themes\/churches\/chiese-barocche-di-sassari\/sassari\/\" title=\"Sassari\">Sassari<\/a>, groups of statues and objects of the Passion march together on Monday and Holy Tuesday).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-holy-week-in-southern-italy\/\" title=\"The Holy Week in Southern Italy\">&lt;&lt;&lt;&#8212;previous page<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/misteri\/\" title=\"Misteri\">next page&#8212;&gt;&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mystery plays in Southern Italy The Church of Rome celebrated the Passion of Christ with an air of drama and theatre from the early Easter liturgies and the oldest forms of devotion. Not surprisingly, the name by which most of the religious processions that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":5900,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6579","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6579"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11730,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6579\/revisions\/11730"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}