Caltanissetta, Sicily
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The countdown to the Obon holiday has begun. Christmas markets, mulled wine, and ice skating: people on every continent around the world are getting ready to get into the festive spirit.
But one Sicilian town is already focusing on the next event: Easter.
Caltanissetta, in the heart of the Mediterranean’s largest island, is famous throughout Italy for its Easter celebrations and parades.
Forget about chocolate egg hunts and cute bunnies. Picture life-sized figures tearing apart the details of the Passion of Christ, devout worshipers walking barefoot through city streets, and the keys to the city being handed over to ordinary people. In the past, this celebration also included the release of prisoners. Sadly, for those currently devastated by Caltanissetta, this is one tradition that remains firmly in the past.
Easter traditions are so deep-rooted that Caltanissetta immigrants still return every year to celebrate in their thousands, and their origins date back centuries.
The most spectacular is the Vallée procession, which takes place every Maundy Thursday. A life-size tableau depicting scenes from Via Crucis, which will tour the city from the moment the sun sets until early morning.
These various scenes were created between 1883 and 1902 by the father-son artist duo Francesco and Vincenzo Biangardi. Originally from Naples, they moved south and worked as artists in Calabria and Sicily before moving to Caltanissetta to create these figures. This will be their masterpiece.
They stand on wheeled platforms at shoulder height, looming over the crowd. Each depicts Christ’s journey to the cross, often in gory detail.
There he is scourged before the high priest Caiaphas. He stumbles in front of Veronica, but Veronica wipes her face with her veil. Then he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Last Supper is a vast tableau in which the disciples turn on each other to find out who betrayed their master. It’s as spectacular as Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Last Supper fresco in Milan.
Then there is Mary and the infant St. John embracing St. John as he is taken down from the cross, a scene from the Pietà as tender as Michelangelo’s famous sculpture in St. Peter’s Basilica.
In total, there are 16 vales, 15 of which were created by the Biengardi duo using papier-mâché, plaster, and wood.
“They are very important to the city,” said Salvatore Petrantoni, a member of the Caltanissetta City Council who is in charge of events such as Holy Week. “One vala alone is not very valuable, but as a group they become important in the tradition.”
Indeed, they pack a punch when they circle Caltanissetta in large lines. First, they are huge. Each figure is at least life-sized, some even larger. And they are set up on rolling platforms starting almost at shoulder height for teams of strongmen who have to push them out.
Departing at exactly 8pm, each group will be accompanied by a marching band. The music of each band competes with those on either side, and the narrow streets of Caltanissetta echo with dirges and solemn processions.
And it’s not just the people pushing each votive tablet, which can require up to six people to move, but these days they also have the help of motorized wheels underneath the cart. There are also people who go along with it. The public lines up after “their” varas, and guild members clear roads and light smoke bombs in the streets to announce the arrival of the wagons.
Meanwhile, each Vara has a leader, immaculately decked out in a tailcoat, who directs the movement of the tableau with a metal baton, clanking it against the pulleys of the cart, telling those pushing from behind when to stop and when to restart.
Before them all goes the Cuntastoria, or “narrator,” a woman who keeps shouting out the Gospel stories in Sicilian.
It is a precise ballet that draws the audience directly into the emotions of the Easter story in this deeply Catholic region of Italy. Thousands of people gathered in the town’s central square outside the cathedral to watch the procession leave after receiving the bishop’s blessing. Follow the cart up, down, and around hilly towns. Or you can come out of the house early in the morning and watch carts go by on narrow residential streets.
Everywhere the line goes, there are hundreds of people waiting for it. As the wagon approaches, the two part silently like the Red Sea.
The scene is not only artistically beautiful; They are meaningful to the community. Each was assigned to a different group, or guild, of the city’s workers, from bakers to blacksmiths, carpenters to plumbers. Some were assigned to miners. The area around Caltanissetta was famous for its sulfur mines in the 19th century. “It was a way of saying thank you that there was no disaster at the mine,” Petrantoni said. One of these was commissioned by a group of miners who survived the tragic death of a colleague in an explosion.
The procession of Valle, which departs on Maundy Thursday, is the most spectacular of Caltanissetta’s Easter ceremonies, but it is not the only one. Here, this tradition continues throughout Easter week.
Wednesday is the day of the Real Maestranza, which is essentially a gathering of the city’s historic artisans. The origins of this group date back to the Middle Ages. At that time, the rulers of Caltanissetta organized a private army to defend the city against Saracen invasions. Today, it is a private group divided into guild-like subsets, each representing a profession such as painters and decorators, confectioners, carpenters, and hairdressers.
These civilians occupy the city on the Wednesday before Easter. At that time, the “captain” of the Real Maestranza, chosen every year from one of the subgroups, goes to the city hall with the symbolic sword and is handed the key to the city, which lies on a cushion.
The mayor bids farewell to his power. For the rest of Holy Week, this captain is the “Padrono della Citta”, or lord of the city, in charge of Caltanissetta. Previously, he (always he) could choose one prisoner to release from the local jail. Unfortunately for today’s fraudsters, captains no longer have the power to suspend sentences. However, he wears an exaggerated traditional costume of tailcoat, shorts, and white stockings to work, and spends a week lording it over the citizens. Members of Real Maestranza will also be marching through the barrisades (small vales) on Wednesday night.
But for the truly pious Nisseni (known as those from Caltanissetta), Good Friday is the most important night. This is when they, again led by the Real Maestranza, parade through the city carrying the Cristo Nero, or Black Christ. This is a wooden carving of a cross believed to perform miracles, and is so beloved that it is known as Signore della Citta, or Lord of the City. In a spectacular procession, Cristo Nero is carried away from his stronghold in the church of Santuario Signore della Citta. Outside, a golden orb is held atop the top and paraded up a steep hill to the city center, before following a processional route around the city.
The sculpture is beloved by the Nisseni not only because it is said to be miraculous, but also because it is associated with the poorest people in society, explains Tony Gangitano, an Italian filmmaker from Caltanissetta. This stone is said to have been discovered in 1618 by the Fogliamari (people who made a living by collecting wild herbs and leaves in the countryside and selling them in town). It is said that they were foraging in the countryside outside Caltanissetta (foriamari means “bitter leaf”) when they entered a cave where they found two candles burning on either side of the sculpture. As soon as the cross was washed from dirt, its color darkened again and it was given the name Cristo Nero.
Recent research suggests that the sculpture is of Byzantine origin, making it one of the oldest crucifix sculptures in Sicily. To this day, no one knows where it came from or how it ended up in the caves outside Caltanissetta.
“I’ve always been fascinated by queues,” Gangitano says. Currently living between Sicily and the mainland. He originally planned to make a short film about the ritual, but turned it into a feature-length film that combines documentary and historical re-enactment. U Christu Turvatu, starring renowned Italian actor Gaetano Aronica and filmed in a medieval town built by Arab conquerors who ruled here during the Middle Ages, won the top prize at the 2022 Taipei Golden Horse International Film Festival.
Today, Fogliamari still exists, and if you walk through Caltanissetta during the day, you can often see vans and cars parked on the roadside selling freshly picked wild herbs and salad leaves on their bonnets. Members of their association lead the Good Friday procession ahead of the local priest. They are followed by the Nisseni (those who have sworn an oath to Cristo Nero) walking the streets barefoot, and by the members of the Real Maestranza in suits and boots, each carrying a lantern. Some carry swords, spears, and shields.
“It’s the most well-attended and the quietest procession,” Petrantoni said of the Good Friday event. Walking through the quiet streets, the foliamaris lead songs and lamentations in a mix of Sicilian and Latin, in what Gangitano calls “a very harsh dialect.”
It is an extraordinary, almost Biblical sight, and for believers it is one of the most moving events of Easter here in Sicily. “People cry because they know they have to wait another year,” Petrantoni said. Approximately half of Caltanissetta’s 60,000 people will take part, with around 1,000 people forming the core of the formal procession, which will walk barefoot through the town for several hours.
“In Sicily, there is more of a sense of tradition, because we have lived it since childhood,” says Petrantoni. Petrantoni walks barefoot alongside Cristo Nero himself and feels so deeply about the importance of the procession that the position of councilor of the event was created for him. His influence continues throughout the year. Pictures of vales and other processions are displayed in the windows of closed storefronts, reminding Caltanissetta of its Easter traditions throughout the year.
You will be reminded when you step into Pasticceria de Fraia, one of Caltanissetta’s famous pastry shops. Here they make spina santa, a crown-of-thorns pastry with blueberry jam inside. It was created for the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1993. “The pope said it was the best thing he had ever eaten,” Gangitano says proudly.
“Vallée is a reminder of who we have always been. We value Vallée very much because it has so much history,” said Petrantoni. They are trying to use it for other events rather than the annual parade. In September, he brought out his varicose veins for an event. While Vallée is always on his mind and always on display in stores across the city, plans for Holy Week 2026 will begin in earnest in February.
Gangitano, who specializes in making films about Sicily, says it’s important to maintain these traditions even as the world changes.
“They are at the root of every town, every person’s identity,” he says.
“If you don’t know the past, you can’t face the present.”
