Sant\' Anastasia

Sant' Anastasia is a Italian city of approximately: 28000 inhabitants, located in the Province of Naples, in Campania, in the south-west of Italy.

Geography

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History

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Economy

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Culture

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Commemorative event

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Administration

Hamlets

Madonna dell' Arco

Communes bordering

Casalnuovo di Napoli, Ercolano, Pollena Trocchia, Pomigliano d' Arco, Summoned Vesuviana

Traditions

Each year, the Easter Monday, has proceeded in Sant' Anastasia, for more than five centuries, in the hamlet of Madonna dell' Arco, a very particular procession which commemorates the Miracle which occurred in 1450 in this same place. The pilgrims, whom one calls the battenti , get under way in the middle of the night, coming from all the area of Naples. Vêtus of white, carrying a red belt around the size and a blue scarf in shoulder-belt, with the colors of the Madonna, they repeat an old ritual in the honor of the Madonna of the Arc. Some go barefeet, others fitted, to join the Sanctuaire.

The origin of this tradition goes up in the middle of the 15th century, but this worship draws probably its roots in the Mediterranean cultures of the Antiquité. Hysteria, fright, dance, race indeed recall the worship to Dyonisos and the Église hardly appreciates this form of at the very least extraordinary devotion, and after a fashion tries to control this demonstration of popular enthusiasm in the absence of being able to prevent it. A festival in the honor of the Vierge took place each year in this village, and the inhabitants organized on this occasion a play which consisted in further sending the ball possible with a wood beater. One of the losers, insane of rage, took the ball and launched it in direction of a painting of the Virgin, striking the cheek of the mother of the Christ, which reddens at once and started to bleed. The witnesses of the scene were struck of stupor and it was decided to organize every year a procession at the same time to repair this gesture sacrilege and to commemorate this “Miracle”.

Nowadays, it is close to 150 000 people who achieve this pilgrimage, and it is an uninterrupted flood pilgrims come from all the Campanie who penetrate in the church of the sanctuary to come to collect itself a few moments, in front of a statue of Marie, traversing the central alley upright, with knees, or crawling on the belly, in an impressive silence, sometimes broken by tears or cries, with the hope n the other hand to obtain the realization of a wish of this act of sincere devotion: “Madonna dell' Arco, not sound system sincero, F che io morio. ” All that is not free from superstition: the pilgrims, after having circumvented the statue to leave pass a handkerchief on the back of the Madonna to take a little her “sweat” and to overlap the face with it!

Twinnings

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See too

List of the Italian cities of more than 25.000 inhabitants

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