Procession of the Dead Friars and Lost Souls

  • 11/10/2022
  • 300

Saturday 5 November 2022
from 10.30 am

ANCIENT HISTORIC CENTER of NAPLES


Saturday,  November 5,  2022, as per tradition, will land in Naples, the 'Procession of the Dead Friars and Lost Souls' promoted by the Fontevecchia Association of Spoltore, in the province of Pescara, in collaboration with 'I Sedili di Napoli', responsible for the organization of the traditional procession of San Gennaro  and the re-enactment of the arrival of the lazars on the occasion of St. Anthony. The event will take place on Saturday 5 November in the heart of the historic center of Naples, with a procession that, starting from 10.30 am onwards, will see the 'Dead Friars', the knights of the Compagnia della Gualdana dell'Orso followed by the figures in traditional Abruzzo dress, of the 'Camminando Insieme' Association, the Neapolitan costumes  of Vintage Fantasies, accompanied by the bagpipes of I Gigli d'Abruzzo, by the Association 'Beato Marco d'Aviano' assisted by the Civil Protection and the Police Headquarters of Naples; overall, the Abruzzo delegation of Fontevecchia will be composed of 100 people with a representation of the municipal administration of Spoltore who will be personally present in Naples.

Image Description

The novelty of the 2022 edition  will be the re-enactment of a beautiful tradition: those rediscovered by the newspaper SulSud.it and popularly called the "cascettelle" masterfully told by Matilde Serao, Eduardo De Filippo and Gianfranca Ranisio as discovered by the newspaper Identità Insorgenti of Naples. Children, with small coffin-shaped boxes with a slot at the top, will open the procession reciting a poem with which they ask for a donation for the souls of the dead. The proceeds, in the past, were invested all in doughnuts and nougats as narrated in one of the most beautiful pages of 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/).

Image Description

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 common heritage of the whole Center-South, of culture, tradition and faith. For years we have managed to recover the cult of the dead on our territory where in the night between the first and the 2nd of November we will carry out 'The Table of the Dead', the re-enactment of the ancient custom of our grandparents and great-grandparents to leave, on that precise night, the tables of their homes laid out as for Sunday lunch or the feast to welcome with all the honors the fleeting return of the souls of the deceased loved ones who,  wants tradition, they have the opportunity to return, only for that brief moment between midnight and dawn, in their homes to see their loved ones asleep. The event will start from the former S. Maria della Pace  hospital and will wind along Via Colletta a Forcella, San Biagio dei Librai, San Domenico Maggiore, Via Tribunali, Piazza San Gaetano, Via San Gregorio Armeno (the street of cribs) to end in the square of the Great Archive right in front of the State Archive).

Image Description

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 sugella and confirms an important twinning with Naples and its cultural associations, aimed at recovering those traditions common to the Centre-South and which today risk being lost. The Neapolitan trip will be attended by a delegation of the administration of Spoltore who will be welcomed by a delegation of the Municipality of Naples.

 

Info and reservations: 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.