THE PROCESSION OF DEAD FRIARS AND LOST SOULS

  • 24/09/2019
  • 658

Saturday 9 November 2019

10:30 a.m. 


Ancient historic center of Naples


On Saturday 9 November, as is now tradition, the 'Procession of the Dead and Lost Souls' promoted by the Fontevecchia Association of Spoltore, in the province of Pescara, in collaboration with 'The Seats of Naples', will arrive in Naples of the organization of the traditional procession of San Gennaro and the re-enactment of the arrival of the Lazarus on the occasion of St. Anthony. 

The event will take place on Saturday 10 November in the heart of the historic center of Naples, with a procession that, starting from 10.30 onwards, will see parades, side by side, the 'Dead Friars', the knights of the Company of the Wandering Wolf followed by the figures in the dress traditional Abruzzo, of the Association 'Walking Together', the 12th-century Neapolitan costumes, accompanied by the bagpipes of I Gigli d'Abruzzo, the Association 'Blessed Marco d'Aviano' assisted by the Civil Protection and the Naples Police; In total, the Abruzzo delegation of Fontevecchia will be made up of 100 people including the mayor of Spoltore Luciano Di Lorito, who will be personally present in Naples. 

The novelty of the 2019 edition will be the re-enactment of a beautiful tradition: those rediscovered by the daily Identity Insurgent and popularly called the "cascettelle" masterfully told by Matilde Serao, Eduardo De Filippo and Gianfranca Ranisio as the newspaper Identity Insurgents of Naples discovered. Children, with small coffin-shaped boxes with a slit at the top, will open the procession by reciting a poem with which they ask for a bolo for the souls of the dead. The proceeds, in the past, were invested all in cans and nougat as narrated in one of the most beautiful pages the Ranisio in the book "The city and its story: Neapolitan paths between imaginary and real" (here the article https://www.identitainsorgenti.com/una-poesia-del-1875-le-cascettelle-cosi-i-bambini-partenopei-festeggiavano-i-morti-a-napoli/).  

For the Fontevecchia Association it is a pride and an honor to bring to the Neapolitan city a piece of our Abruzzo tradition, which is then part of the heritage common to the whole of central-South, of culture, tradition and faith. For years we have managed to recover the cult of the dead, which is something quite different from the pagan and sometimes esoteric celebration of Halloween, on our territory where in the night between November 1 and 2 we will carry out 'The Table of the Dead', the re-enactment of the ancient the custom of our grandparents and great-grandparents to leave, on that precise night, the tables of their houses set up as for Sunday lunch or the feast to welcome with all honors the fleeting return of the souls of the deceased loved ones who, tradition dictates, have the opportunity to return, only for that brief moment between midnight and dawn, to their homes to see their loved ones asleep. 

The event will start Piazza San Domenico Maggiore and will take place along Via San Biagio dei Librai, San Gregorio Armeno, via nativity, Piazza San Gaetano, Via dei Tribunali and the wide in front of San Domenico Along the way there will be interventions by scholars, historians and anthropologists who will illustrate the birth and evolution of the cult of the dead. 

The event confirms an important twinning with Naples and its cultural associations, which are focused on the recovery of those traditions common to Centrosud and which are in danger of being lost today. The Neapolitan trip will be attended by the mayor of Spoltore Luciano Di Lorito who will be welcomed by a delegation of the City of Naples. 


Info: 331/6796820



About Us

The committee for the establishment of the Fontevecchia Association was formed in 2010 and is an active part of civil society with interventions relating to the environment, mobility, knowledge and integration. The purpose of the association, in addition to the protection of traditions, the territory and the aesthetic redevelopment of the village born in 1600, is articulated on a wide range of interventions.