MARCHE – There are many historical processions in the Marche ready to come to life during the Easter period. The territory is ready to dive into popular and religious traditions. In particular, the Good Friday event is deeply felt, which brings the Passion of Christ to the stage, through rites that combine devotion with theatricality. Some of these ceremonies are secular, others more original.
Province of Ancona
In particular, the processions of Osimo and Loreto are considered among the most important in the region. At Villa Musone, in the Marian city, the event has been organized since 1978 Death of the Righteous, re-enactment of the Passion of Christ with hundreds of participants and a real script that mobilizes the entire village until the crucifixion at the first hairpin bend of the climb to Loreto. Wanted then by the unforgettable Father Valentino Lanfranchi of the parish of Villa Musone, the living procession is set up by the Valmusone Youth Tourist Center and includes the participation of the Archbishop of Loreto Fabio Dal Cin. This year’s edition has a double element of novelty: the cross is carried by a woman for the first time ever because the Passion this year is dedicated to the victims of femicide and to the children involved in the wars of the world. Passion it is marked by evocative music and the songs of the local choir while a narrator narrates the scenes, up to the culminating moment of the Crucifixion on the top of the Loreto hill.
READ ALSO: Via Crucis: in Loreto for “The Death of the Righteous” a woman will carry the cross
In Osimo the procession of the Dead Christ, organized by the Confraternity of the Pious Union of the Dead Christ, dates back to 1713 and since then it has only been canceled three times (in 1934 due to a terrible storm, in 1944 due to the German occupation and in 2020 due to Covid). We start at around 8pm, from the Cathedral of San Leopardo, with around 200 big bags who, in a black habit, covered faces and in a chilling atmosphere, will descend towards Piazza del Comune to the sound of the beating, the verses of Metastasio and the funeral marches by Chopin. After having traveled the route with the 1878 cataletto along Via San Francesco, Via Pompeiana, Via Matteotti and Corso Mazzini, he will return to the Duomo.
Province of Pesaro
Then famousin Turba di Cantiano. Born around the 13th century, it represents one of the most touching Easter events in the Marche. Not only that, it is also one of the oldest and most evocative Italian sacred representations. A small town in the province of Pesaro-Urbino, Cantiano welcomes numerous tourists and visitors from all over Italy to attend the re-enactment on Good Friday.
Province of Fermo
Small municipality in the Fermo area, Mount San Pietrangeli every year it stages the representation of the Passion and Death of Jesus, whose origins are probably lost in the mists of time. The current representation was born with the ancient coffin of the “Dead Christ”, created by the famous architect Luigi Fontana between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century.
Province of Macerata
In the Macerata area Port Recanati celebrates Good Friday with an evocative procession, “The coffin of the night”. A representation that was born in 1713, when the bishop of Recanati, Monsignor Gherardi, promoted the establishment of some brotherhoods, including that of the Dead Christ. Among the various tasks, this was entrusted with organizing participation in the “Coffin”, a procession which probably derives from the sacred medieval representations of the life of the Saints and of Christ.
Province of Ascoli Piceno
The Ascoli area is full of processions. There is the Passion of Christ a Montalto delle Marche where numerous figures stage the salient moments in the characteristic procession that starts up the climb of the “Passeggiata del Monte”, that of the Dead Christ in Monsampolo del Trontor where on Good Friday the Confraternities unite and parade wearing colored tunics, with the street lit by torches, and the Dead Christ of Monteprandone (procession with golden coffin).
