Carnivals, Folklore and Religious Festivals:

Sicily is not only a land of history, it is a land of spectacle. Almost every day of the year, a village somewhere will be celebrating a religious or traditional festival. Many of these festivals have been enacted for hundreds of years, often in elaborate style complete with costumes, life-sized puppets, waving flags and music. The whole town turns into one huge festivity as everyone participates.

Easter Holiday is one of the most interesting among the religious events in Sicily. The most fascinating Easter celebration takes place in Caltanissetta. Here, on the Holy Wednesday, the most ancient arts and crafts guilds parade in procession, following the Captain of “Real Mastranza”. The Captain, yearly elected among the artisans, wears eighteenth century clothes and carries a black veiled crucifix. Accompanied by the notes of the dead march, he leads the procession to the Cathedral, where there is the Eucharist, symbol of forgiveness. Here they exchange their black socks, gloves and bows with white socks, gloves and bows and start again the procession, now led by the Bishop and joyous for the redemption.
During the same day there is the procession of “Varicedde”, little cardboard and plaster statues leading up to the Thursday’s parade of the so-called “Vare” or Mysteries. They are coffin that bear imposing statues made up of wood, cardboard and plaster representing the stages of “Via Crucis”. On the Holy Friday, it is the turn of the Black Christ’s procession, a crucifix blackened by the smoke of devotional candles.

Among the several Patron Saint Feasts, there is one really impressive: “Sant’ Agata”, Catania’s Patron Saint, taking place on the 3rd, 4th the 5th of February. Coming across the procession could be quite an astonishing experience without being acquainted with it. The popular devotion bursts out from every face, every, gesture, every voice.
The tradition tells that, in the third century A.C., Catania was shocked by a tremendous earthquake as soon as the young Agata died, as a consequence of the martyrdom she was subjected to for not recanting her Christian faith. Exactly one year later, Etna broke out in an eruption that only stopped when people carried Agata’s maidenly veil in procession. Since then, the red silk veil is displayed as soon as the volcano threatens eruption.
The Feast starts with the procession of “Candelore”, majestic baroque structures made up of inlayed golden wood. Sant’Agata’s statue, covered with jewels, is carried in procession through the city centre, worshipped by the devotes wearing white coats and bearing very heavy candles. The feast, in a climax of emotion and devotion, ends late at night with the race of the “Candelore” carried by the representatives of arts and crafts guilds up to St. Julian Street’s uphill.

In February, in Agrigento, there is the yearly “Almond in Blossom” festival to thank the Mother Earth for her gifts and to celebrate the beginning of spring, which does not certainly wait for the 21st of March to fill with life and colour the trees and the fields of Sicily. In the magic of Temple Valley, flooded with almonds’ white blossoming and standing out against the blue background of the Mediterranean Sea, the International Folk Festival takes place. It is a very important cultural event, which emphasises the relationship existing among different ethnic groups’ traditions. Here, just here, in Sicily, where people from Africa, the Middle-East and Europe have woven their destinies and their cultures. There is a festival almost every month, just to name a few: the “Infiorata” takes place in Noto on the third Sunday of May, the feast “U pisci a mari” (The Fish in the Sea) takes place on the 24th of June in Aci Trezza. In Piazza Armerina, on the 12th, 13th and 14th of August the “Palio dei Normanni” evokes the entry in Sicily of the Normans, who freed the island from the Arabs in the eleventh century. Here, knights belonging to the four historical quarters challenge each other in the presence of the Norman Count Ruggiero, in token of gratitude. In September the Cous Cous Festival takes place in San Vito lo Capo. In Zafferana Etnea in October the “Ottobrata” takes place: a whole month dedicated to the seasonal flavours such as mushrooms, chestnuts, honey, grapes etc., then it is December’s turn, the month of Nativity, felt with extreme devotion in such a religious land as Sicily.