What’s in the Past: Symbols, Rituals and Folkloric Imagery in Historical-Comparative Perspective [1 ed.] 9783949189869, 9783949189845

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Ignazio E. Buttitta

What’s in the Past SYMBOLS, RITUALS AND FOLKLORIC IMAGERY IN HISTORICAL-COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Studia Comica

Studia Comica Herausgegeben von Bernhard Zimmermann

Band 18

Ignazio E. Buttitta

What’s in the Past Symbols, Rituals and Folkloric Imagery in Historical-Comparative Perspective

Verlag Antike

Dieser Band wurde im Rahmen der gemeinsamen Forschungsförderung von Bund und Ländern im Akademienprogramm mit Mitteln des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung und des Ministeriums für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes ­Baden-​Württemberg erarbeitet.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über https://dnb.de abrufbar. © 2023 Verlag Antike, Robert-Bosch-Breite 10, D-37079 Göttingen, ein Imprint der BrillGruppe (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Niederlande; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Deutschland; Brill Österreich GmbH, Wien, Österreich) Koninklijke Brill NV umfasst die Imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, Verlag Antike und V&R unipress. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen Fällen bedarf der vorherigen schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlages. Umschlagabbildung: Dionysos-Theater und Mosaik einer Komödienmaske, mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Reihenherausgebers Einbandgestaltung: disegno visuelle kommunikation, Wuppertal

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISBN 978-3-949189-86-9

Contents Vorwort des Herausgebers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9

I.

Continuity of forms and change of meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

II. Historical stratifications in the ritual symbolism of Saint Joseph Festivals in Sicily . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

III. A Mother among the Branches. The Madonnas of the Trees in the Euro-Mediterranean Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

IV. The Cerami Circu. An initiation rite in rural Sicily . . . . . . . . . . . .

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V. »ἔργον τόδ᾽ ἐϋγραφὲς Ζανὶ ἀνέθεντο« (Anth. Pal. VI 221). Continuità morfologiche e funzionali negli ex voto figurativi . . . . . .

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Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Vorwort des Herausgebers Schon immer zogen Riten und Kulte der Griechen die Aufmerksamkeit der Gräzistik auf sich. Ende des 19. und in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts entstanden die großen Gesamtdarstellungen wie Sam Wides Lakonische Kulte (1893), Ludwig Deubners Attische Feste (1932) oder Martin P. Nilssons Geschichte der griechischen Religion (1941, 1961), begleitet von Detailuntersuchungen wie Hanns Flucks Skurrile Riten in den griechischen Kulten (1931), um nur weniges zu nennen. In der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts wurde die Kenntnis der griechischen Religion vor allem durch die Untersuchungen von Martin L. West und Walter Burkert vorangetrieben. Gebete, Riten, Hymnen: all dies spielt eine große Rolle auch in der attischen Komödie, meist in der Form der Parodie. Dies wurde für die erhaltenen elf Komödien des Aristophanes durch die Arbeiten von Hermann Kleinknecht (Die Gebetsparodie in der Antike, 1937) und Wilhelm Horn (Gebet und Gebetsparodie in den Komödien des Aristophanes, 1970) gründlich untersucht, für die Komödienfragmente entstehen allmählich auf der Basis der von Rudolf Kassel und Colin Austin herausgegebenen Poetae Comici Graeci (1983–2022) Untersuchungen zu den religiösen Aspekten der griechischen Komödie. Seit dem Jahr 2011 erschließt das von der Union der deutschen Akademien geförderte Forschungsprojekt Kommentierung der Fragmente der griechischen Komödie (KomFrag) an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg die Komikerfragmente. Und seit dieser Zeit arbeitet die Forschungsstelle eng mit der Fondazione Buttitta in Palermo und insbesondere mit deren Präsidenten Ignazio Buttitta zusammen. In Workshops und Tagungen wurden aus religionswissenschaftlicher, ethnologischer und anthropologischer Perspektive, vor allem in einer komparatistischen Herangehensweise, Fragen und Probleme diskutiert, die unsere Arbeiten zur Komödienforschung weiterbrachten. Der vorliegende Band vereint wichtige Arbeiten Ignazios Buttittas und unterstreicht – so hoffen wir – den Nutzen interdisziplinärer Arbeit auch für die philologische Beschäftigung mit fragmentarischer griechischer Literatur. Freiburg, im April 2023, Bernhard Zimmermann

Foreword Mir scheint, der Anspruch auf totalitäre  Geltung  sei hier wie überall vom Übel; das Wesen der Wissenschaft ist Freiheit, der Geist weht, woher er will, und nach Rom führen viele Wege. Und wäre es nicht gar zu traurig, wenn wir just auf diese unsere Frage, vielleicht die wichtigste und faszinierendste, verzichten müssten? Wie beunuhigend rätselhaft, wie erregend ist es doch zu sehen, dass unsere Maskenbräuche, diejenigen des griechisch-römischen Altertums und solche der Naturvölker in Grundzügen und in den seltsamsten Einzelheiten immer wieder die verblüffendsten Analogien aufweisen! Das schreit doch nach einer Erklärung, und in gewissem Masse dürfte eine solche schon heute möglich sein. Allerdings bleibWen geschichtliche Beziehungen und Abhängigkeiten noch weitgehend im Dunkel, so dass wir mehr auf eine Art von Phänomenologie angewiesen sein werden. Aber einen Sprung werdet auch ihr einmal machen müssen, wenn ihr etwas erreichen wollt; d. h. ohne Intuition, ohne Phantasie geht es nicht, ist Wissenschaft blosse Kärrnerarbeit. So wagen wir es denn! Besser den Problemen zu Leibe gehen als lange um Methoden feilschen! (Karl Meuli, Gesammelte Schriften, I, Basel 1975, pp. 283–284)

Except in circumscribed areas, folkloric research, at least at an academic level, does not enjoy particular fortune in Italy today. Only that part of research that can be put at the service of an equivocal policy of recovery and valorisation of the so-called folk traditions, and aimed at creating or recreating goods that can be used by the cultural tourism market, appears partially useful. This is not the place to examine the reasons and recapitulate the history of this progressive decline. I will limit myself only to recalling what I noted at a conference of studies on popular religiosity held in Palermo in 1999, La forza dei simboli. Studi sulla religiosità popolare. Among the issues that contemporary Italian ethno-anthropological studies should have gone back to addressing in a widespread manner, taking up a tradition of studies that was anything but secondary, there was inevitably that of the persistence, in significant portions of the national territory, of modes of perception and organisation of time and space and, in parallel, of structuring social relations typical of agro-pastoral societies. This could also be seen where significant transformations of traditional socio-economic contexts had taken place. I further noted how the urgency of answering this question was also based on the need to find a positive solution to the progressive disconnect, felt by many, between the worldviews of large parts of real society and the often-contradictory ones proposed by the media managed by the economic-political elites. I noted how relating to certain contexts, particularly in the cultural sphere,

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one could detect a meandering behavioural discord that required individuals to constantly make choices between different and opposing relational strategies and contradictory value systems1. In this direction, the analysis of festive rites is particularly relevant. They, as highly formalised symbolic behaviours, substantially express the values that are judged fundamental by a society2 and present themselves as primary resources of its cultural memory3. The festivals acted out in defined times and spaces, on the one hand, disjoin, perimeter, and ritually connote, thus signifying, abstract segments from the space-time continuum; on the other hand, they reaffirm existential senses and rhythms. In this respect, they periodically display the continuity of cosmic and social life, propose an image – more or less markedly ideal – of the being of the world and society, confirm the collective belonging/dependence of the entire community to/from the sacred entity celebrated. This is why all festive rituals are characterised by ritual acts of sacral re-founding of time and space and offerings to the deities on which one feels one’ s well-being and the proper completion of the cycle of the year depend. Therefore, an analysis of these rites, conducted in-depth and always concerning the sociocultural contexts within which they are performed, allows us to recognise – as Silvana Miceli recalls – »al di sotto dei messaggi superficiali, l’ ideologia profonda del gruppo e quindi ancora, il sistema socio-economico da cui quest’ ultima è determinata«4. The preceding remarks illustrate the operational frame of reference that allows us to look at the set of festivals and cultic behaviours illustrated in this volume. Its ambition would be to be able to grasp the reasons for the constitution of such anthropological facts and their extraordinary persistence. This could make it possible to define the meanings and functions originally underlying ritual behaviour and to measure their actuality and possible persistence within those contexts invested by new instances and affected by significant dynamics of transformation of ritual language, both at the level of vocabulary and syntax. On the other hand, tracing the root of these rites, their morphological proximity, and their iterative homogeneity back to a worldview structured on the cycles of agricultural production allows us to observe, within a satisfactory horizon of meaning, those recurrences of symbolic elements and ritual structures that are observed between ancient and contemporary festive ceremonies that »excluent le hasard et impliquent l’ héritage commun« and to consider these ceremonies »l’ expression de variantes dans un fond analogue«5. I would like to thank Ivo Flavio Abela, Francesco Paolo Bianchi, Daniela Bonanno, Pietro Giammellaro, Sebastiano Mannia, Igor Spanò, and Gioele Zisa 1 2 3 4 5

Buttitta, Perricone 2000, 5. Beattie 1972, 331. Cf. Miceli 1972, 133. See Halbwaks 1952 e 1987; Assmann 1997; Fabietti, Matera 1999 1972, 138. Sergent 1994, 15 e 18.

Foreword

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for their timely revision of the text and valuable suggestions. Massimo Cultraro for always supporting me in my work and welcoming me into his research group at the National Research Council’ s Institute of Cultural Heritage Sciences. Bernhard Zimmermann for having urged me to publish one of my works in his prestigious series and making me a gift of his Introduction. I dedicate this work to my wife Monica, my research partner, constant support, reason for living. Note. The essays in this volume take up, with modifications and expansions, my articles, or parts of previously published volumes. The first chapter takes up the Introductory remarks of Continuità delle forme e mutamento dei sensi. Ricerche e analisi sul simbolismo festivo (Acireale-Roma 2013, 17–35); the second chapter the essay The Past ›Interpreter‹. Historical Stratifications in the Ritual Symbolism of Saint Joseph Festivals and Holy Week in Sicily (»Distant Worlds Journal«, 4, 2020, 40–62; the third chapter the essay Our Mother of the Woods. A Contribution to the Study of the ›Madonnas of the Trees‹ in the Euro-Mediterranean Area (»Buletin Ştiinţific, Fascicula filologie«, seria A, 25, 2016, 319–341; the fourth chapter the essay Il circu di Cerami. Un rito di iniziazione nella Sicilia rurale in D. Suiogan, S. Maris, C. Darabus (eds.), Cultural spaces and archaic background. Papers from the I conference of Intercultural and Comparative studies, Baia Mare 2008, 121–140; the fifth chapter the Introduction of Verità e menzogna dei simboli (Roma 2020, 7–44). The English translation of chapters I, II and IV, which I subsequently revised, is by Benedict Beckeld to whom I remain grateful for the valuable work. The bibliographical references to works in foreign languages within the text refer to the editions in Italian translation except for references to direct quotations which, where possible, refer to the original edition.

I. Continuity of forms and change of meanings The ›continuist perspective‹ and the historical-comparative method. In the preface to his La religione primitiva in Sardegna, Raffaele Pettazzoni6 makes extensive use of various perspectives, methods, and materials typical of other disciplines (philology, ethnology, folklore) in order to integrate and interpret the meager archeological documentation that had been his starting point in recostructing the religious universe of Sardinia’ s first inhabitants. He recalls a passage in which Louis Jordan writes of religion as an »intensely human thing (Anthropology), inseparable from man’ s earliest history (Archaeology), appertaining to his mental constitution (Psychology), revealing itself in his primitive religious thinking (Mythology and Folklore), and constituting an integral part of his developed social life (Sociology)«7. As against the common academic viewpoints of the time8, Pettazzoni points out the need – for those who wish to promote a modern scholarly study of religions – to extend knowledge to all the aforementioned special fields, and deepen them in each as much as possible, grafting on the heritage of the disciplines that already have in Italy a glorious tradition, a general ethnological culture9. On the basis of these assumptions, Pettazzoni in his work makes ample use of materials and ideas derived from numerous ethnologists and also, in a more limited way – essentially in order to attest to the modern persistence of a documented past custom and to clarify its meaning – of folkloric material. The latter endeavor is guided by the more general consideration that »tutta la vita del popolo di Sardegna è ancora piena di sopravvivenze«10. These are techniques, beliefs, and rituals attested among the most ancient Euro-Mediterranean civilizations, among »i primitivi dell’ Oceania e dell’ America«11, and in the folklore of other European regions12.

6 7 8

9 10 11 12

1912. Jordan 1905, 322. Raffaele Pettazzoni, in contrast to the ›absolute historicism‹ of Benedetto Croce, committed himself to the scientific autonomy of the history of religions, and to a mature historical approach to cultural facts that took ethnological research into account from a comparative perspective. To Pettazzoni, it was essential to demonstrate the scientific necessity of an autonomous study of religions, a necessity that Croce denied (Croce 1932, 216 s. Cf. Momigliano 1992, 706; Xella 2005, 21–40), and to admit the history of religions to the field of historical disciplines, since it had a specific object and method (cf. Brelich 1970–1972).

Pettazzoni 1912, XI.

Ibid., 106. Ibid., 109. Ibid., 119.

I. Continuity of forms and change of meanings

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The persistence of ancient habits and customs is not surprising to Pettazzoni, who adopts an evolutionist perspective, because noi possiamo ben pensare a una sopravvivenza di elementi, propri di fasi superate di civiltà, per entro a tempi più progrediti. E l’ ipotesi è tanto più legittima per la Sardegna, ove si hanno esempi numerosi di persistenze tenaci di usi costumi credenze antichissimi, che né progresso di tempi né avvicendarsi di popoli né mutarsi di condizioni politiche valsero a sradicare13.

To Pettazzoni and many others14, this survival is particularly evident in the cults of saints that are widespread in the Christian and especially the Catholic world. Indeed, he writes, many »pratiche del culto […] passarono dall’ antica fede nella nuova […] nel sostituirsi dei Santi cristiani alle molteplici figure dell’ antico politeismo«15. This was certainly the case of those saints »che furono eredi della venerazione secolare tributata alle divinità guaritrici nei santuari più famosi« and that inherited »anche le virtù mediche e i sistemi di cura«16. While Pettazzoni lent great impetus to the matter in academic circles, research on cultic imagery and practices in ancient Italy, through an examination of both ancient and contemporary folkloric beliefs and practices, had taken place already in the early 20th century. For Sicily, we recall, especially, Emanuele Ciaceri, who wrote in the introduction to his Culti e miti nella storia dell’ antica Sicilia17: »Resta sempre vero che culti e miti pagani sono in vario modo durati in vita attraverso l’ opera di trasformazione del trionfante cristianesimo«18. Biagio Pace, in his 1945 work Arte e civiltà della Sicilia antica, discussed this territorially based persistence, noting: »Non v’ è, può dirsi, antico centro della Sicilia nel quale non sia riconoscibile, nell’ aspetto esterno di solennità e festività religiose, questa eco più o meno attutita di antichi culti«19. A bit less than two decades later, Eugenio Manni took up the same point of view, in his Sicilia Pagana20, tracing in the expressions of popular religiosity of his own time the »persistenza

13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20

Ibid., 151. Several scholars investigated the relationship between Christian saints and GrecoRoman deities, in line with a perspective that goes back at least to the reformist polemic against ›Roman idolatry‹ and, conversely, to a re-examination of Christian martyrology, and of the legends of saints and their miracles, by the Magdeburg Centuries in the 18th and 19th centuries (cf. Trede 1889–1891; Saintyves 1907; Delehaye 1912 and 1927; Woodburn Hyde 1923, 41 ff.; Laing 1931, 8 ff.; Niola 2007). Ibid., 156. Idem. 1911. Ciaceri 1911, IV. Cf. Giammellaro 2016. Pace 1945, IV 73. 1963.

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di culti che, pur sotto spoglie cristiane, sono ancora vivi ed efficienti«. He further observes: »per Madonne e per Santi si continuano riti arcaicissimi, qui come altrove, che un tempo erano rivolti a Grandi Madri o ad Eroi. E spesso si continuano nelle stesse sedi«21. Pettazzoni’ s first student, Angelo Brelich, also follows these guidelines: on the occasion of a memorable conference, he challenged Eugenio Manni and his school regarding the reconstruction of the religious forms of pre-Greek Sicily through the available documentation, which included folkloric material22. Brelich had previously focused on the sanctuary cult on Monte Autore, the Shrine of the Most Holy Trinity23, for the purpose of finding the basis of the pilgrims’ ritual practices and beliefs, which indeed were connected to pre-Christian and even prehistoric times. In his study, on the basis of a small but still unequivocal body of evidence, Brelich established that the site had been frequented already in antiquity for cultic purposes. He noted that the site shared environmental characteristics with other ancient sanctuaries (a mountain, a cave, and a fountain). He then analyzed the pilgrims’ behavior: upon arriving at the sanctuary, they walk around it, touching the live rock of the cave wall with their right hand24. Exiting the sacred building, they then acquire specific objects from some sheds arranged on a ledge: the men a paper conical cap with fake flower decoration, the women garlands of artificial flowers. They also carry a stick made of twisted branches, usually with three points (an allusion to the Trinity), decorated with flowers, bringing to mind the caduceus. During the descent, they tear off large tree branches from the woods and they throw a stone at the mounds along the path and another at the river as they cross the bridge backwards, that is, facing the now distant sanctuary25. The attitudes, gestures, and ritual symbols that characterize the pilgrimage on Monte Autore are more or less directly traceable, according to Brelich, to a considerably earlier religious context than Christianity. But what Brelich found particularly decisive for the antiquity of the pilgrim ritual was the fact that in the popular imagination the Holy Trinity presents itself as a female entity: è notevolissimo il fatto seguente: benché [i pellegrini] cantino inni alle ›Tre Persone‹ e gridino spesso Viva la Santissima Trinità, essi non hanno spesso un’ idea precisa dell’ oggetto della loro venerazione. Essi lo chiamano per lo più ›la Santissima‹ […] e pensano che il loro pellegrinaggio si svolga in onore della Madonna26.

21 22 23 24 25 26

Manni 1963, 246. Cf. Brelich 1964–1965; Cusumano 2005. Brelich 1953–1954. Ibid., 38. Ibid., 39. Ibid., 40.

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Brelich was of course aware of the literature on the spread of Mary cults to sanctuary sites characterized by non-Christian ritual forms. This phenomenon is clearly observable in Sicily, where pilgrimages, rosaries, solemn masses, and processions in honor of the Virgin Mary take place throughout the year, and where there are numerous cross-regional female cult sanctuaries27. Within this extensive panorama, we also have the cults that are devoted to Mary’ s epiphanies or her simulacra and icons near trees and rocks or in caves (and often, as elsewhere in Italy and Europe, in connection with water springs). These cults sometimes involve, importantly, the practice of displaying wheat and plants (branches, flowers, herbs) during processions that include the symbolism of an agricultural or pastoral nature (distributing bread, running with simulacra, etc.). All this leads us to believe that people were not only requesting bodily restoration from these thaumaturgical Madonnas, but also the regular development of the seasonal production cycles. Certain aspects are common to all agricultural-pastoral civilizations that have marked Euro-Mediterranean history since the Neolithic. This continuist perspective does not only concern religious history and antiquity. Already at the end of the 19th century, Giuseppe Pitrè and many other folklore scholars after him had hypothesized certain relationships between antiquity and the present. Some less astute scholars even considered the pre-Christian religious forms – which they generally described as ›pagan‹ – as a privileged reference point for understanding the forms of the ›popular‹ practices and beliefs they were studying, even if these did not have the same meaning or function. In establishing links to the distant past, Pitrè certainly adopted the ideas – very popular at the time – of the ›mythological‹ and ›evolutionist‹ schools. However, he understood the limitations of a method that did not always allow access to the hidden meaning of contemporary practices and beliefs by dint of always emphasizing their ›primitive‹ significance, and he thus realized the need to reconstruct wherever possible, the historical development of each phenomenon. But to some extent, rather than sharing the notion that his subject could be reconstructed without the subsequent history – that is, could be seen as merely having survived – Pitrè referred to the past uncritically, as was the general custom among his European colleagues. It was only with Giuseppe Cocchiara that a serious historical perspective in the ethno-anthropological field began to emerge. In the introduction to his Storia del folklore in Europa28, he invites us to consider popular traditions as historical formations and points out that »the fundamental problem that they present, given their nature, is a historical one« 29. The scholar of popular traditions, according to Cocchiara, must »see how they are formed, why they are conserved, and what necessities contribute not only to their conservation but also to the continual and,

27 28 29

Scellato 1983. 1981. Ibid., 4.

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I would say, natural re-elaboration containing the very secret of their existence: a continuous dying for an eternal rebirth« 30. Because of this continuous process by which the products of a culture are updated and integrated anew, one cannot speak of survival in evolutionist terms, as if these products always rested on a prehistory of religious ideas and behaviors: La verità è che le tradizioni popolari, anche quando accusano gli echi di antiche esperienze religiose e sociali, sono pur sempre nel popolo storia contemporanea. Direi, anzi, la sua più intima storia contemporanea, in cui le medesime sopravvivenze si stemperano in continue rielaborazioni, che possono anche avere una loro particolare organicità. Nessuna tradizione avrebbe senso e valore, se essa non fosse pienamente accolta dal popolo e con significati che possono cambiare da un’ epoca a un’ altra31.

Cocchiara often reflected on the consistency, or lack thereof, of certain cultural continuities and on their heuristic significance, and he saw that they might assume different and sometimes contradictory forms over time. Sopravvivenze delle credenze primitive sulla maternità nelle tradizioni popolari; Sopravvivenze protostoriche e storiche nelle tradizioni popolari della Sardegna; Sopravvivenze folkloriche del paganesimo siciliano are the titles of some of Cocchiara’ s main essays on the subject32. The topic of cultural continuity and survival then began to emerge among other notable Italian anthropologists. Vittorio Lanternari – with such works as Il culto dei morti e della fecondità-fertilità nella paletnologia della Sardegna, alla luce del folklore sardo e dell’ etnologia and Dalla preistoria al folklore: alcuni aspetti della tradizione religiosa sarda33 – recognized in analogous religious forms a certain spatial-temporal continuity of ritual structure and symbolism. Ernesto De Martino, although he was inclined to emphasize ancient sources in order to reconstruct funerary34 and tarantist35 beliefs and practices in southern Italy, had strong doubts about the continuist perspective, especially when applied to tarantism36. Questions and lines of inquiry. The issues that emerge from Cocchiara, Lanternari, and De Martino, both on the usefulness of historical (archeological and written) sources for understanding ritual, and on the chronological continuity 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Idem. Cocchiara 1978, 118. These essays, published between 1936 and 1965 in journals and conference proceedings, have been collected in Cocchiara 1978. Now to be found in Lanternari 1984. De Martino 1958. De Martino 1961. Gallini 2008, 16. Cf. Di Donato 1999.

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of practices and beliefs and the legitimacy of the comparative method, deserve our attention today. This is especially true considering the dissolution of what has been called ›rural civilization‹, as well as the renewed interest in non-material culture by communities in search of identity, or by the so-called ›cultural market‹. We can and must ask ourselves once again: can the material and non-material testimonies of the past, even the very remote past, help us understand what we observe in current religious festivals? Conversely, can today’ s or at least recent folklore help us to clarify the meaning of much older stories and rituals? And if so, to what extent? What is the nature of these diachronic relationships, assuming they exist? And if we believe that, through all due diligence, we recognize some analogy between past and present rituals in specific cases, is it a matter of mere formal continuities or is there something more? Do the meanings and functions of the rites, the motivations and expectations of the devotees of today and those of yesteryear have something in common? Are they really as radically different as the chronological and spatial distances would have us believe? Can we establish, as others have done, a direct relationship between Saint Anthony the Abbot and Prometheus by virtue of their status as bearers of fire to mankind? And on the level of ritual, can we establish a direct relationship between the torch races attested by the Prometheia and the ampelodesma torch races, the ciaccariati, which even today are devoted to Saint Anthony the Abbot in some parts of Sicily? To dispel any belief in a direct connection, it would be enough to point out, on the one hand, the celestial characterization of Promethean fire and the infernal characterization of Anthony’ s fire, and, on the other, that processions and torch races are, both in ancient Greece and in modern Sicily (and in many other times and places), structural components of numerous ceremonies of varying form, function, and divinity. Can we limit ourselves to recognizing a formal resemblance and stating, at most, that fire has been considered an element of extra-human origin and that it recurs as a sacred symbol, with different meanings and functions, in multiple ritual areas? And why should fire ever have been considered a sacred symbol or an indispensable element of cultic practices? Over the years I have often returned to the question of how far knowledge of antiquity can be useful, or misleading, in understanding my subject as a researcher of ›popular tradition‹37. On the one hand, I always took into account the fragmentation and the degree of randomness in ancient textual sources. As Brelich has observed, »dietro i testi sta un ben più vasto e ricco tessuto culturale«, which in turn represents oral traditions that for the most part have been dispersed38. On the other hand, I might have underestimated the influence of industrialization and tertiarization, which have taken place at least since the end of the 19th century and more rapidly since World War II, on ›popular‹ religious practices and symbolism, 37 38

Buttitta 2002a, 2006a, and 2020. 1970–72: 627.

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that is, I might have ignored the consequences of the ideological dismemberment of a rural community, as well as the consequences of its economic, social, and technological transformation39. But then can we explain the laurel branch processions, the unbridled dances on processional carts, the altars with polymorphic loaves of bread, the beliefs in the donni di fora40, and the cyclical return of the dead, simply by resorting to a synchronic and sociological analysis and without considering similar behaviors and beliefs documented in ancient Sicily and the Mediterranean region in general? I ultimately concluded that knowledge of this past helps me to reconstruct the forms of current ritual and also to understand the latter’ s internal reasons; that much of the folkloric content of the present cannot be decoded without a glance at the past; and that it is thus worthwhile to embark upon the difficult path in that direction. I also concluded that knowledge of the current folklore among the lower classes of large cities, and, even more so, in the rural areas of southern Italy, can help us understand the forms, meanings, and functions of the most ancient cults. I believed, and still do, that the problem is not primarily to ascertain the existence of some relation between past and present phenomena (religious ones, in our case), but rather to establish the level at which this relationship appears. We bear in mind, of course, that similar cultural outcomes could have been produced by non-identical instances, and that superficial morphological analogies or symbolic recurrences do not explain anything and may lead to entirely misleading interpretations. I also believe that the effectiveness of references to the past depends on the working method and the importance entrusted to the sources. While, in fact, a reference to the past can be useful and sometimes essential – even if only to understand the forms of certain phenomena – the vulnus of all historical-comparative research lies in the comparative modalities, which are sometimes uncritical and too general. For it is evident that in discussions on religious practices and ritual symbols, any direct reference to the distant past, and any ›phylogenetic‹ research, often prove to be ineffective without prior attention to the relationships between the objects of reference and their respective contexts41. The desire to reconstruct the supposedly ›original‹ forms and meanings of folkloric rites can never justify comparisons between phenomena from different times and places if individual contexts and, especially, the particularities of dif39 40

41

Lanternari 1976 and 1980. Cf. Bausinger 2005. Non-human entities that populate the area can be assimilated into fairies, which can also take the form of a majara/magara (sorceress). Pitrè writes: »un po’ streghe un po’ fate senza potersi discernere in che veramente differiscano dalle une e dalle altre« (1889: 153). They are very beautiful but can manifest themselves as animals (toads, snakes, etc.). They are fickle, spiteful, and vindictive, but also benefactors toward men; as they strike and harm people, so they also offer remedies for illness, reveal hidden treasures, and bestow blessings upon children: Henningsen 1990; Guggino 2006. Evans-Pritchard 1965, 100 ss.; Gurevič 2007, XIX f.

I. Continuity of forms and change of meanings

19

ferent social structures and modes of production are not taken into account. As is well known, all-out comparisons that are inattentive to the individual nature of the different socio-historical contexts, and which are especially widespread in evolutionary anthropology, have led to highly suggestive works, sometimes containing a great wealth of material, but that are also of questionable scholarly quality42. Angelo Brelich has already remarked that evolutionary comparisons tend to »accumulare sotto ogni ›rubrica‹ di argomento un numero imponente di documenti, spesso solo superficialmente analoghi, ma soprattutto sempre isolati, strappati cioè all’ organica unità culturale cui appartengono e dalle connessioni storiche che potrebbero spiegarli«43. The same applies to some phenomenological research44. In this regard, we may recall the words of Nicola Cusumano: Non possiamo operare un taglio netto tra forma (che può essere percepita in termini di ripetizione) e contenuto (che determina il senso e la funzione assunti dalla forma). Come mi sembra abbia mostrato con cautela Carlo Ginzburg, ogni possibilità di stabilire una relazione tra strutture e forme “atemporali” da una parte, e contenuti storici dall’ altra, è circoscritta e limitata dalla costante attenzione al contesto: […]. È lecito rifiutare la comparazione morfologica e tipologica tra fenomeni storicamente indipendenti? Il punto di connessione problematico è che certi elementi possono perdurare al di là del contesto in cui erano nati, come mostrano le ricerche condotte da Aby Warburg […]. Ciò non elimina la questione delle omologie profonde, che non sempre possono fondarsi su connessioni storiche note, e questo ci invita a non considerare l’ analisi morfologica seccamente alternativa a quella storica. Oggetto di indagine storica non può dunque essere l’ elemento isolato, ma il suo contesto, ossia le relazioni tra i suoi elementi: […]. Se invece estrapoliamo singoli elementi da contesti diversi troveremo sempre qualche continuità, cioè troveremo sempre quel che desideriamo trovare: cosa ha a che fare questo col sapere storico?45.

Comparisons, which seek to identify significant relationships between phenomena of different cultures, must not, therefore, neglect to analyze any given phenomenon systemically and contextually. Ideas such as »einer grossen Zahl einzelner Erscheinungen und Nachrichten, Räthselhaft in ihrer Isolirung, erhalten sie, wenn verbunden, den Charakter innerer Nothwendigkeit«46 and »das Material das ihm zu Gebote steht, ein Haufe einzelner Trummer und Fragmente ist, die gar oft, von der einen Seite betrachtet, unecht erscheinen, spfiter dagegen, in die richtige

42 43 44 45 46

Cf. Burke 1995, 37 ff.; Cirese 1997, 95 ff. 1954–1955, I 67. Cf. Dhavamony 1973, 23 ff. Cusumano 2012, 17. Bachofen 1861, XI.

20

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Verbindung gebracht, das frühere voreilige Urtheil zu Schanden machen«47 thus represent dangerous half-truths, as Bachofen’ s work on matriarchy has shown. Several scholars have noted that it is methodologically unsound and can lead to fallacious interpretations to study a ritual element or cult figure without paying sufficient attention to socio-cultural contexts and existential regimes and, more in detail, to ritual contexts in which worship takes place48, and to the systemic relationships and symmetries that exist among individual institutions, as well as to their relation to political and socio-economic conditions. As Evan-Pritchard writes, we have to account for religious facts in terms of the totality of the culture and society in which they are found. […] They must be seen as a relation of parts to one another within a coherent system, each part making sense only in relation to the others, and the system itself making sense only in relation to other institutional systems, as part of a wider set of relations49.

If therefore the space and time of a religious festival can be viewed as one of the points of access to the knowledge of the religious forms and ideas of a culture,50 the ceremonial calendar becomes crucial. Dumézil, at the beginning of his Fêtes romaines d’ été et d’ automne, emphasizes the importance of ceremonial calendars – of the principles that guide the organization of celebrations, as well as of the contents of individual ceremonies and the relationships among them – in order to better understand religious forms: La théologie est un grand corps d’ idées, une conjointure dont il ne s’ agit que de déterminer les divisions, les points singuliers, les articulations. La pratique religieuse est au contraire un continuum vécu qui s’ adapte aux circonstances périodiques ou accidentelles, en s’ appuyant certes sur la théorie sans laquelle rien n’ aurait de sens, mais avec une grande souplesse dans les choix, dans les combinaisons, dans les séquences. Pour la religion publique, le principal cadre de cette pratique est le calendrier et, dans le calendrier, le tableau des fêtes fixes51.

47 48 49 50

51

Ibid., XII. Cf. Bettini 1986, 89. Evans-Pritchard 1965, 112. Starting from the notion that festivals or celebrations are ›transfigured times‹ and ›sublime moments‹ in which one may sense the warmth, spontaneity, and originality of the homo religiosus’ creative moment, Kerényi states: »Wenn es irgend etwas gibt, wovon das Verstehen der antiken Religion ausgehen kann und worin die Religionsforschung der Altertumswissenchaft und die der Ethnologie einander Hilfe leisten können, so ist es das Ergründen dessen, was das Wesen des Festes it« (1995, 35). Dumézil 1986, 9.

I. Continuity of forms and change of meanings

21

Public ritual moments are therefore not considered to be of a merely discursive nature, a direct expression of belief systems. Rather, they take on explanatory value in their capacity as actual instances that support religious beliefs and ideologies. We find similar thoughts in Propp’ s work on Russian agrarian festivals52 and in Greimas’ on Baltic mythology53. These works view religious celebrations as symbolic articulations of a systemic nature and emphasize the need to study ceremonial calendars comprehensively. Individual institutions can be understood only in relation to others, and so each religious phenomenon’ s relationship with the larger set of phenomena is essential. Further, Brelich and Lanternari, and more recently Grimaldi and I54, have examined the relationship between festive cycles and production cycles in order to understand the meanings and functions of religious ceremonies. Essentially, since a festive rite is neither isolated nor isolable from the ceremonial calendar, or a cultural system more generally, it can only be fully understood within that calendar and that system55. It was on the basis of similar considerations that Propp observed how the contents of New Year’ s, Carnival, and Easter rituals, as well as of spring and harvest festivals, can be traced back to a precise socio-historical phase, namely that of agriculture. Greimas writes: Les fêtes calendaires sont liées à l’ alternance des saisons et, dans les sociétés agraires, à la succession des travaux des champs et des soucis des hommes. Ces travaux qui se répètent d’ une année à l‘autre, accomplis selon les règles établies et les modalités prescrites, devaient être benis et protégés par des génies tutélaires, leur réussite fournissant l’ occasion de remercier les dieux et de manifester sa joie. On ne peut donc séparer l‘éternel retour des travaux et des fetes de la religion ellemême: les dieux y participent autant que les hommes. Les rites et les mythes, la liturgie et la théologie sont inséparables56.

From reading these scholars it is clear how the study of mythological and ritual expressions is decisive for our understanding of ideologies and social forms, and of the cultures that have preceded us, since this study reveals to us »un univers 52 53 54 55

56

Propp 1978. Greimas 1985 and 1995. Brelich 1954–1955; Lanternari 1976; Grimaldi 1993; Buttitta 2006a. Smith 1988, 136 ff.; cf. Id. 1981. Caillois observes that all interpretations of cultural facts and expressions lose much of their value when they »restano avulsi dal loro contesto, dall’ insieme delle credenze e dei comportamenti di cui fanno parte e che conferiscono loro un senso« (2001, 9. Cf. Gellner 1992, 31–61): this is because in every cultural phenomenon, as Bogatirëv maintains, following Koffka’ s notion of structure, every element »raggiunge la sua completezza soltanto per mezzo degli altri e insieme con gli altri« (Solimini 1982, 57). Greimas 1984, 60.

22

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mental, différent du nôtre, difficile d’ accès, déconcertant encore qu’ à certains égards familier« that clearly exposes »l’ alphabet dont ils se sont servis pour épeler le monde«57. It follows that the analysis of ancient mythical-ritual material can help us understand the nature of our own beliefs and behaviors, and not only those that are explicitly ›religious‹ or ›popular‹. Proceeding in reverse, and with even greater caution, we can also observe that the analysis of ritual forms within the field of folklore, and of their related belief systems, can teach us something about temporally distant systems of thought and behavior58. These considerations are of course only valid if one recognizes a cognitive value to history, that is, if one agrees that causal relations among the phenomena of a culture exist diachronically and, especially, are significant and have explanatory value. One thereby assigns a heuristic function to the historical-comparative method. Comparison, when carried out with caution and without extrapolating individual segments from their particular contexts that bestow them with meaning, is certainly helpful for understanding cultural facts. In his Vulcanus Jagaubis, Dieu du feu, Algirdas Greimas, after having reiterated that »ce n’ est pas la recherche des correspondances entre tels et tels dieux, pris séparément, qui est importante«, states that comparative mythology is an important field because it allows us »de confronter et de mettre en évidence des affinités de la pensée religieuse, aidant ainsi le chercheur à se construire des modeles de caractère général, qui sont pourtant des outils précieux pour aborder des problèmes spécifiques d’ une religion particulière«59. What can be legitimately compared are sets and systems of beliefs and behaviors, not individual divine figures or ritual symbols. The search for correspondences between individual elements can in fact be misleading, »car les rassemblances, dues au hazard, s’ y mêlent souvent aux correspondances authentiques«.60 Therefore, as Vernant argues, we must reject those global evolutionist comparisons that proceed »par assimilation directe, sans tenir compte des spécificités de chaque système de culture. […] La comparaison n’ est valable que dans la mesure où elle va de pair avec l’ institution d’ un champ

57

58 59 60

Vernant 1972, II. Ethno-anthropological studies have revealed that myths and rituals – the latter not being a mere performance of the former but having its own language – are a precious source of information on the lives and ideologies of those who engage in them, and have also revealed that they are connected to economic activity and social organization (cf. Miceli 1989, 16). Bachofen has emphasized that mythical-ritual expressions, insofar as they are the representations of a people’ s experience in light of its religiosity, can be viewed as a »das getreue Spiegelbild aller Perioden des Lebens« of a civilization, and therefore also as documents and testimonies of particular systems of thought (1861, VIII). Cf. Eliade 1990, 121 ff. Greimas 1984, 72. Idem.

I. Continuity of forms and change of meanings

23

d’ enquête offrant des garanties suffisantes de complétude d’ une part, de cohérence interne d’ autre part«61. If, then, in the religious manifestations of all peoples »mettent en œuvre certains éléments constitutifs fondamentaux (des rites, des mythes, des croyances) qui, dans leur grande diversité, ne sont pas réductibles à un modèle unitaire, mais qui , au niveau de ce que l’ on pourrait appeler ›un air de famille‹, peuvent et doivent être comparés entre eux«, because »une religion, comme une langue, est en effet le résultat de l’ organisation d’ éléments issus d’ ailleurs, ou d’ avant, réinterprétés dans un cadre nouveau et coherent«62, it is only by once again engaging in comparison that we can seriously contribute to the solution of complex issues such as the cross-cultural recurrence of certain celebratory episodes and their ritual symbols. When we have thus overcome the constraints of self-referential analysis and opened ourselves to prudent comparative methods, the presence of similar religious institutions in other societies – even those distant in space and time – becomes clear. This leads to the question of what causes these sometimes quite broad similarities. It is the natural and material periodicity that explains the periodicity of festivals and their symbolism, and these gain their content (form, meaning, function) from the beliefs that accompany them. As Brelich says regarding the universality of religious phenomena: »Malgrado la grande varietà di forme particolari, ciascuno di quei fenomeni ha una struttura fondamentale propria«, which is connected, I would add, to the instance that generated it. He continues: Ciò non significa affatto che una tale struttura sia al di fuori della storia, ma significa soltanto che il fenomeno risponde a condizioni storicamente valide a una grande varietà di epoche, luoghi, civiltà e, per questo stesso fatto, si è potuto costituire anche in fasi remotissime della storia umana, anteriori alle più importanti diversificazioni culturali, e mantenersi, in forme sempre variate, attraverso tutte queste diversificazioni63.

These contents, similar but not identical or constant over time, can always be linked to remote historical and socio-economic horizons of a common character. Still, even those scholars who clearly tend toward historical-comparative explanations also recognize the variations in rituals’ form and meaning, while emphasizing their common structural and ideological roots. James writes about seasonal celebrations:

61 62 63

Vernant 1972, III-IV. Cf. Detienne 2000; Calame, Lincoln 2012; Lincoln 2018; Freiberger 2019 Borgeaud, Prescendi 2008, 8. Cf. Modzelewski 2008, 20. Brelich 1954–1955, I 18.

Ignazio E. Buttitta

24

The recurrence of a common cultus, throughout the Ancient Near East and the Aegean, with marked similarities and dissimilarities, centred in the vegetation cycle in which the king and queen impersonated the Young god and the Mother-goddess, has been conditioned very largely by the particular environment in which it has occurred. Seasonal festivals, however, whatever may have been their common or independent features, must of necessity have been related in the first instance to the calendrical course of events. They have always been primarily concerned with the food supply. Under Palaeolithic conditions they tended to centre in the times of breeding among the animals hunted in the chase, or of the appearance of the wild fruits, roots and berries. Similarly, when husbandry and herding became the chief means of subsistence, the festivals were related to these operations which in their turn were governed by the cycle of nature; spring and autumn, summer and winter64;

a seasonal periodicity that was not, of course, perceived as a ›natural‹ succession of events but as subjected to ›supernatural control‹65. Thus, while it is certainly true that »On n’ explique pas un usage en montrant qu’ il exista jadis des usages semblables«, but that it »on l’ explique en faisant voir le lien qui, d’ une façon permanente, l’ unit à certaines conditions de fait«66, it is among these conditions that generated them and allowed their recurrence over time that the reasons for the similarities must be found and on which explanations for variability and continuity must be based. And these conditions are the historical persistence of certain existential situations, as well as of related religious and social ideologies. As Caro Baroja correctly says regarding the recurrence of certain folkloric elements: El hecho de que semejantes acciones rebasen un ámbito histórico, un ciclo social, no permite hablar de meras supervivencias, ni de cambios de significación; antes bien, parece indicar la existencia de unos rasgos muy permanentes de los grupos humanos, con voluntad de expresar ciertos intereses esenciales bajo formas parecidas67.

The world-view of those who live off the products of the land or the sea (farmers and fishermen), of those who depend on vegetative cycles (shepherds), is inextricably linked to the seasons, which before the advent of modern technology influenced the types, techniques, and timing of production. These factors of production, in turn, determined social life in traditional societies, as well as the alternation between sacred and profane times. While we most certainly do not wish 64 65 66 67

James 1960, 134. Ibid., 153. Granet 1919, 5. Caro Baroja 1979, 156.

I. Continuity of forms and change of meanings

25

to advocate for economic determinism, one cannot deny that there is an intimate relationship between magical-religious ideology and economic production. It is precisely because of this relationship that we can observe similarities, on both the morphological and functional level, among the mythical and ritual expressions of different ancient Mediterranean cultures, and between these and modern folkloric culture. It is always because of this relationship that syncretism and assimilations68 have been possible in every era of the Mediterranean world; popular Christianity itself is no exception. Due to a long-term absence of substantial changes in the times and types of agricultural-pastoral production, it has been possible to discern the transmission across time and space of various beliefs and rituals, even within the complex historical dynamics that have affected various regions. Regarding the persistence of archaic religiosity on a folkloric level, it should also be remembered that ideologies move more slowly than socio-economic evolution. Rituals connected to disappearing production cycles therefore remain in place, implicitly assuming new functions or amplifying ones that had previously been secondary. This long duration of rituals is based, moreover, on the fact that they are rigidly formalized and have a strong ideological content, which is considered to have proven its effectiveness. I would therefore like to conclude – at least trying to hint an answer to our initial questions – that we must look to cultures’ world-views and modes of production and reproduction in order to understand certain formal, semantic, and functional analogies between rituals, myths, and symbols. The analogies derive from the common or particular cultural responses to these modes of production, which are more deeply rooted than the historical relationships that developed among various Euro-Mediterranean peoples69. An analysis of the structural commonality of these responses – which are determined by human physiology – clarifies certain spatial and temporal continuities of ritual forms and symbols70. Those who seek this clarity should therefore focus their attention not only on formal structures.

68 69

70

One thinks, for example, of the Pyrgi tablets: cf. Moscati 1964; Battaglini 1991. Brelich himself, though he is so critical of evolutionist comparisons, states regarding the recurrence of certain mythical-ritual themes among the great agrarian civilizations: »noi dovremo necessariamente ammettere che certi grandi quadri tipologici sono validi per le civiltà di tutti quei popoli che vivono in condizioni analoghe« (1954–1955, I 64). Cf. Buttitta 2020.

II. Historical stratifications in the ritual symbolism of Saint Joseph Festivals in Sicily ›Archaic‹ contexts. Roccavaldina (the Nebrodi mountains, Province of Messina), the first week of August. A young, white, immaculate ox is slowly advancing through the crowd. It is blindfolded and bound with red ribbons, and follows docilely the procession of the sacred simulacrum of St. Nicholas, the patron and protective saint of the community, toward the sacrificial spot, an ancient millstone. Upon arrival, it is blessed by the priest and then slaughtered in an expert manner with a knife to the jugular71. The carcass will be butchered and its meat, after having been cooked in large pots, will be brought in procession by officiants to the Piazza del Duomo, where, in front of and with the saint, after the distribution of blessed sandwiches the faithful will collectively consume this sacred meal, u cummitu (the banquet). Alì Superiore (the Nebrodi mountains, Province of Messina), the third week of August. Through the steep and narrow streets of this mountainous locale, the cilii – the traditional processional carriages – are advancing, followed by a multitude of the praying faithful. The first carriage is transporting a parallelepiped structure in purple cloth, at whose centre a picture of St. Agatha is shown. She is lined with unleavened loaves of bread in the shapes of nails, hammers, hands, palms, crowns, and other shapes referring to her life and martyrdom, and also with numerous bells (ciancianeddi) and red and white ribbons. The second carriage is covered with a canvas canopy on which several pieces of gold jewellery are attached as votive offerings. It is transporting two girls, representing St. Agatha and Catherine, who are weaving on a traditional wooden loom. Ventimiglia di Sicilia (the Madonie mountains, Province of Palermo), second week of August. On the occasion of the feast of Our Lady of Graces or of the Rock, which traditionally concludes the harvest period, a pilgrimage takes place. The faithful go to a sanctuary located near two massive boulders that together form a kind of small cave. Inside this cave the worshippers deposit candles and flower bouquets ex-voto, thereby recalling a cultic context that is foreign to Christian liturgy. Troina (the Nebrodi mountains, Province of Messina), last week of May. Sounds of gunfire and indistinct shouts emerge from a dense forest of oaks and hollies. Suddenly, pilgrims appear out of the curtain of trees, exiting the forest in an orderly procession. They appear to be trees themselves, laden as they are with intensely green leafy branches. These are laurels, Laurus nobilis, or u ddauru in

71

This practice was abandoned about twenty years ago due to the intervention of animal rights associations. Today the ox is slaughtered directly in the abattoir according to standard procedures.

II. Historical stratifications in the ritual symbolism

27

the local parlance. They are the branches of the sacred plant of St. Silvester, patron saint of Troina, which the faithful gathered on the previous day in a dark valley of the more distant Caronia forest and which are now being brought to the saint, at his grave in the city temple, to fulfill a vow or request his favour. We are in Sicily in the 21st century, but in light of such ritual performances and symbolism as these, one may believe us to be in remote places and times: in a sacred procession through the streets of Greece or Rome behind a sacrificial victim72; in Athens, in a peplum-filled procession to the Panathenaea73; on the top of a hill at a megalith sacred to the Meteres74; or in the forests of Parnassus on a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi75. Yes, it would really seem as if we were in distant places and times, were it not for the different scenario, the dress of the faithful and the pilgrims, the sunglasses, the smartphones… St. Nicholas is neither Jupiter nor Mars, St. Agatha is not Athena, Our Lady of Graces is neither Tanit nor Demeter nor any of the other life cycle goddesses, St. Silvester is not Apollo, nor is the forest of Caronia the Vale of Tempe, and the ramara (›branch-carriers‹, as the pilgrims are called) are most certainly not the Daphnephoroi. On close examination, ancient and contemporary ceremonies and their ritual symbols have their distinct characteristics and do not appear to be entirely comparable, not even morphologically, so it does not seem possible – at least not at first glance – to assign similar functions to the rites of the past and those of the present, or analogous motives to the various cult actors of the different eras. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the beliefs, cultic expressions, festive rituals, and pilgrimages that involve many Sicilian communities even today dis72

73 74

75

See Burkert 1981; Grottanelli, Parise 1993; Scheid 2011; Detienne, Vernant 2014. Esp. on ›sacrifice‹ in modern and contemporary peasant ritual and in ancient cult practices: Georgoudi 2014. On bovine sacrifice in Greece: Paus., Perieg. I, 24, 4 and I, 28, 10 (Bouphonia); Od. III, 6–7 (sacrifice of black oxen to Poseidon); Od. III, 430 (sacrifice of a white heifer to Athena). For the whiteness of the bovine pelt: Il. XXIII, 12–34: »and many white bulls (πολλοὶ μὲν βόες ἀργοὶ) were slaughtered« (v. 30). See McInerney 2010, esp. ch. 6–9. Literary and iconographic testimonies in ThesCRA 2004, I, 59 ff. Guhl 1860, 199 ff.; Deubner 1932, 22 ff.; Simon 1983, 38 ff. Angelini 1992; Corradini 1997; India 2014. There is a vast literature aiming to demonstrate the relation between popular Marian cults and those of pre-Christian female deities (James 1959; Warner 1980; Neumann 1981; Baring, Cashford 1991; Pestalozza 1996 and 2001; Gimbutas 1990 and 2005). This hermeneutic standpoint has been criticized by various scholars (e.g. Georgoudi 1994; Chirassi Colombo 2008; Greco 2016), both regarding the supposed presence of a shared prehistoric religiosity centred on the Great Goddess, and also regarding the continuity between prehistoric female deities and the divine figures of the ancient Pantheon and Christianity. Plut., Quaest. Graec., XII; Elian., Var. Hist., III, 1. The ritual in Thebes mentioned by Pausanias and Proclus is similar: Paus., Perieg., IX, 10; Procl., apud Photii Biblioth., 321. See Jeanmaire 1975, 388 ff.; Brelich 2013, 387 ff. 413 ff.; Calame 1977, 117 ff. 191 ff.; Buttitta 2006b e 2013.

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play strong resemblances with those of even quite remote times and places, and this not only on a superficial level76– so much so, in many instances, that if we arbitrarily extrapolate a single ritual from its socio-historical context, namely that of the popular religious festival, that ritual may appear to us timeless, or to be an instance of ›eternal return‹, as Eliade described it77. First considerations. If we take as our point of departure the hypothesis – albeit one that cannot be philologically proven78 – that at least in some cases ritual behaviour and symbols of an archaic flavour are seamlessly derived from the past and without being cultural events that have been separately and/or independently caused by various events (social upheavals, ethnic or cultural changes, political exigencies, etc.), then we must ask ourselves what were the main factors that allowed for such a long duration. There are very specific reasons for the continuation of archaic symbols and behaviour in contemporary festivals, even if these have been transformed and invested with new meaning, and for their presence through the millennia in a fundamentally agricultural and pastoral society. Firstly, the deep relationship between Christianity and the popular, especially farming, world79, and the reiteration of cultural and behavioural patterns whose persistence could be connected, at least to some extent, to maintain – in the European countryside until fairly recent times – some essential elements of the lifestyle and the existential framework which had characterized pre-existing rural societies80. We find no valid reasons for assuming that in the peasant and pastoral societies of the post-pagan world there had to be any radical change in the mythopoeic mechanisms, the ›expectations‹ of

76

77 78

79

80

›Familienähnlichkeiten‹ (Wittgenstein 1974, 46–47; 1975). Cf. Needham 1975; Perissinotto 1997, 88–95. There are many other symbols and ritual practices in Sicily’ s religious festivals that recall those of classical and Near East antiquity: the processional use of evergreen branches, the lighting of bonfires and torches, alms for children, ritually formalized food consumption, dances and races of giant puppets and carriages transporting sacred simulacra, ceremonial dances and ritual games, and demonic and theriomorphic costumes (Buttitta 1999; 2002b; 2006; 2013; Bonanzinga 2013; Giallombardo 2003). Eliade 1999. Some rare exceptions are those contexts where it is possible to reconstruct through archaeological and textual evidence, even if only imperfectly, the development of cults in Carthaginian and Greek Sicily up to the present. Among these we have for example the cult of the Madonna of Bitalemi in Gela (Buttitta 2018). Niola 2009, 101. The attitudes of local churches to the expressions of so-called popular piety have not been homogenous or consistent: Colombo et alii 1979; De Rosa 1981, 75–114; Tagliaferri 2014; Berzano, Castegnaro, Pace 2014. See also Gurevič 1986; Schmitt 2000. Seppilli 2008b, 545.

II. Historical stratifications in the ritual symbolism

29

hierophanies, the elective places of the manifestations of the sacred81. Rather, both historians of religion and anthropologists are aware of how the continual renewal of analogous practices suggests to the homo religiosus a consolidation of worship and therefore sustains the persistence of his ritual forms over time82. Christological and hagiographical reinterpretation has certainly contributed to the conservation – and not merely survival83 – of ancient symbolic heritage (especially to its iconic and performative aspects) in its historic concentration to evangelize the Italian farming and urban common people84. It thus happened that an original valorisation of the Christian message that could be defined as ›cosmic Christianity‹ developed in the rural sphere85. Within this framework, the Christological story of incarnation, death, and resurrection is rejected, and its linearity subverted, in narratives and ritual expressions, in favour of a circularity that views nature – that is, life and fertility – and humanity as cyclically redeemed and renewed86. Other important factors have also facilitated the long morphological – if not functional – duration of ritual symbolism. At least since the early middle ages these surely include continuous manipulations – sometimes secret, sometimes overt – of historical and political87 identity and, in more recent times, reinvention and development in the tourist-patrimonial arena. It is indeed evident how the heterodox practices and beliefs that characterize Sicilian ritual contexts, far from being mere remnants, rather turn out to be functional mechanisms for affirming and negotiating individual, familial, and communal identities88. 81 82 83

84

85 86 87 88

Ibidem. Pagliaro 1972; Miceli 1989. The phenomena of magic and popular religiosity have been explored starting with studies in evolutionary anthropology and then in the research on “survival” or religious remnants: Tylor 1871; Saintyves 1932; Cocchiara 1978; Belmont 1988; Lauwers 1988–1989; Lanternari 2006. Niola 2009, 101. Cirese, commenting on the letters of St. Gregory the Great regarding the evangelization of Sardinia and England, observes that, given the obvious strength of the resistance and the need for compromise (duris mentibus simul omnia abscindere impossibile esse non dubium est), it is no wonder that, in spite of hundreds of prohibitions and disapprovals of the consuetudines non laudabiles declared by ecclesiastical Councils or Synods in two thousand years, “popular” religiosity is still largely permeated with ‘magical’ and ‘superstitious’ elements. He underlines that there are many examples of mixing and confusion of pre-Christian and Christian beliefs and observances (1997, 100–101). On this issue, see also Lelli 2014. Eliade 1997, 144. Cullmann 1946; Auf der Maur 1983. Halbwachs 1952; Hobsbawm, Ranger 1994; Assmann 1997; Fabietti, Matera 1999; Bausinger 2005 e 2008; Spineto 2015, 3–44. Bravo 2001, 149–199; Bonato 2006; Palumbo 2003 e 2009; Fournier 2013; Giancristofaro 2017.

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If, then, we are faced with a heterodox symbolism that is mostly connected to the themes of vegetal and human fecundity and the return of life and abundance, and with the specific agrarian temporality of certain para-liturgical rites, it is certainly not the case to hypothesize imaginative parentages from the ancient cults, it seems even less sensible to close the eyes in front of certain analogies, which are never an answer but a question89. This is a solicitation to examine carefully, but without prejudice, the formal connections and the resemblance between the rituals of the past, including the remote past, and those of the present. The festival of Saint Joseph. The framework we have just outlined is particularly evident in Sicily when it comes to the rites and symbols of spring festivals, notably those of St. Joseph and Holy Week90. Within the rural ceremonial calendar, these festivals are configured as New Year’ s celebrations, as the renewal of life cycles and social relations, but also as the recollection and sharing of a specific cultural memory91. It is no coincidence that in Sicily St. Joseph is one of the most revered saints. He is the protagonist of special celebrations in many parts of the island, some more than once per year. These celebrations in his honour do not exclusively fall close to March 19, but also in April and May and in the summer, a period in which many areas of Sicily experience higher numbers of people, both tourists and migrants who temporarily return home to honour their patron and protector saints. In addition to the procession with the statue and carriage, the ritual elements that most characterize the celebrations of St. Joseph are: alms and offerings of wheat (always more common than money), ›tables‹ and ›altars‹92, sacred images (a recurrent motif is the flight into Egypt), and the lighting of bonfires. As is the case with the public cults of many other saints, stemming as they do from the faith of the same ecclesiastical matrix, the celebrations of this patriarch present – and almost always without the participants being aware of it – a pre-Christian ritual symbolism. The period of the year in which the saint’ s celebration takes place is of 89 90 91 92

Niola 2009, 101. Buttitta 1990; Plumari 2003; Giallombardo 2006. Lanternari 1976; Grimaldi 1993; Buttitta 2006a. Tables and altars with steps, made for fulfilling a vow to the saint (but also for replying to a request from the saint presented in a dream), framed by branches of laurel and/or myrtle and covered with white fabrics on which an image of the saint is embroidered, loaves of bread of the most varied shapes (of animals, vegetables, and stars, related to the story of the saint and Christ), and the dishes that will be consumed by the actors who represent the Holy Family and those accompanying them: apostuli, santi, virgineddi, vicchiareddi, etc. (apostles, saints, maidens, old men, etc.) (Pitrè 1881, 230 ff. e 1900, 445). The table of the god placed on the steps where the sacred image is located, and the table below containing the dishes for the Holy Family and the other guests, constitute a single sacred space »ove il pane è sostanza connettiva, connotativa e commemorative« (Cusumano 1992, 73).

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particular interest for agricultural life, as it appears in the rural religious calendar as a period of change, as a veritable ceremony of seasonal passage from winter to spring. The nature of this rite of passage becomes explicit first of all in the widespread use of vampi (bonfires). They are lit on the evening of March 18, the eve of the festival, and are traditionally advertised as winter’ s last fire. They mark the end of the cold and thus the definitive extinguishing of the braziers used for heating. Like all ritual fires in winter (among which are those for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Saint Lucia, Christmas, and St. Anthony the Great), the vampe of our patriarch seem to recall archaic purifying and apotropaic rituals, ceremonies of cyclical renewal that have been reconfigured over the centuries at the hand of historical processes and socio-economic events93. This dimension of the festival of passage between different time periods can also be seen in the preparation of the votive ›tables‹ and ›altars‹ and in the banquet attended by the ›saints‹ as representatives of St. Joseph, Baby Jesus, and Mary, often accompanied by a varying number of children, usually poor or orphans. This devotional practice presents a ritual symbolism that is obviously rooted in archaic land-based imagery. It is not a coincidence, nor can it be explained purely on the basis of charity or wealth redistribution, that it is the children – and traditionally the poorest ones – who are invited to the ›tables‹ to consume a symbolically very significant dish, explicitly connected with the agrarian cycle and the request for safety and abundance. The rural cultural memory, in fact, records the existence at certain times of a symbolic exchange in which the deceased are represented by the poor or by children94. Spring is the time of the most acute food shortage95. It therefore becomes necessary to celebrate abundance, promote the rebirth of vegetation, and anticipate abundant food consumption. Here we find the necessary food offerings to the poor, children, and derelicts, people who stand for otherness 93

94 95

As already on Lemnos the extinguishing of the fire refers to chaos and death, and its rekindling marks the recomposition of the cosmos and the resumption of life on both the human and cosmic levels (Philostr., Heroik., XX, 24; Dumézil 1924; Delcourt 1957, 171–190; Burkert 1992, 35–56; Bettini 2005). Ritual bonfires appear in various contexts: from the Persian Nowrouz, in which on the last Tuesday of the year (chahaarshanbesuri) large bonfires are lit during the night over which people jump (atashbazi), to the fires dedicated to saints, lit during festivals and seasonal passage rites (especially in connection with equinox and solstice) in various parts of Europe (Ariño 1992; Buttitta 1999 e 2002a; Lombardo 2010; D’ Onofrio 2018, 90 ff.). Lombardi Satriani, Meligrana 1989, 139. Alcman observes that spring is the season «in which everything blossoms, but there isn’ t much to eat» (fragm. 56). Indeed, in the spring the new seeds have started to rise but the food stores that have sustained the family over the winter are exhausted and the new harvest is yet to come. A Calabrian proverb goes: “Prima Natali, né friddu, né fami / Doppu Natali, lu friddu e la fami (Before Christmas neither cold nor hunger / After Christmas both cold and hunger)” (Teti 1978, 177. See D’ Onofrio 1998, 119).

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and are thereby ritually called upon to represent the deceased guarantors of life cycles96 and, together, to share food as an auspicious sign for future riches97. At the banquet with the dead. The ritual banquet around the table of St. Joseph is generally called fari i virgineddi (makeing maidens). In the towns of the Madonie mountain range – Alimena, Isnello, Gangi, Petralia Soprana, Caltavuturo – the boys and girls are called virgineddi, are always odd-numbered, and are invited to the votive table together with the ›saints‹98. Among the various interesting elements of this sacred meal, which is based exclusively on vegetable products99, is the opening dish: rice or pasta with lentils or beans, often accompanied by wild fennel. Cusumano has observed that in antiquity lentils and beans, due to their connotation as seeds in pods, as well as broad beans, were symbolically the food of the dead and practically the main meal of funeral feasts100, but in all eras also of religious festivals dedicated to the deceased, from the Anthesteria, which was characterized by the consumption of panspermia101, which everyone boils in the city102 – a true and proper »supper for the souls«103 that was forbidden to the priests and only eaten privately within the family104 – to the folkloric ceremonies that anticipate the consumption of grains and boiled legumes. Both the cuccìa (boiled wheat) consumed for the Commemoration of the Dead as well as the soup of St. Joseph (legumes and boiled vegetables) are ritual foods based on unground seeds, and they are part of a unique vitalistic-chthonian symbolism. They repre-

96

97

98 99

100 101 102 103 104

The intimate relationship between children and the deceased is unequivocally established in the child alms of su mortu mortu and sas animas that are still performed even today in Sardinia on the eve of the Commemoration of the Dead (Mannia 2015). In many societies, the child is not considered to be a full human being until it has completed certain initiatory rites (Lévi-Strauss 1995; Buttitta 1995). The social value of the ritual must be emphasized. The preparation of the tables and altars requires coordination, organization, and participation among family members, relatives, and neighbours. Eating and drinking together play an essential role in social life: «Il pasto è una forma di relazione che crea vincoli e obbligazioni “ricche di senso”» (Giallombardo 2006, 12). Sottile, Genchi 2011, 270 ff.; Giacomarra 2012. Vegetables and fresh fruit, as well as various dishes based on legumes, vegetables, and eggs, from which meat is traditionally absent. It may be useful to refer to the theoxenia (see ThesCRA 2004, II 225 ff. e 247 ff.). Cusumano 1992, 75. The panspermia was consumed in Athens during funerals and also in another moment of cosmic crisis, namely at the Pyanepsia in autumn (Spineto 2005, 106). See Schol. R. Aristoph. Ran., v. 218. Harrison 1991, 37. Burkert 1981, 173; Daraki 1985, 86. For Nilsson this ritual should be compared to the Roman Parentalia and the Persian Hamaspathmaedaya, which were also spring ceremonies revolving around the cult of the dead (1992, 597).

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sent a powerful life, which can only express itself fully by being introduced into the earth and the kingdom of the dead: the seeds are delivered to this kingdom, and it is thanks to the dead that they are able to take root and to sprout, to gain robust stems, and finally to produce their kernels. This relationship between the dead and the living, between the underworld and the earth above where the work of agriculture takes place, and the absolute dependence of a good harvest on the powers of the earth, were very clear to the ancient farmer. He knew perfectly well that: The community was not merely composed of the living but of the ancestors as well. […] The ancestors, the custodians of the source of life, were the reservoir of power and the vitality, the source whence flowed all the forces of vigour, sustenance and growth. […] Whatever happened, whether for good or evil, ultimately derived from them. The sprouting of the corn, the increase of the herds, potency in men, success in hunting or war, were all manifestations of their power and approval105.

In the critical moments of the production cycle, it thus becomes necessary to stand in a positive relation to those who guarantee the life and reproduction of the fruits of the earth106 by offering them, as a form of ›obligatory‹ and ›necessary‹ generosity, vegetal items, the products of the earth – precisely the ›gifts‹ that the deceased themselves have brought forth and must continue to bring forth through the earth as gifts to the living: Par des offrandes alimentaires aux morts, par des rituels qui instaurent la tutelle des puissances souterraines sur les espèces végétales, le groupe veille à relancer sans cesse la circulation entre l’ espace souterrain (hypochthonion) et la surface de la terre (epichthonion). Les travaux agricoles sont exécutés, mais ils ne sont pas pensés. Leur efficacité est conditionnelle. Il ne viendrait à l’ esprit de personne que l’ action humaine ait par elle-même le pouvoir de faire surgir les nourritures du sol: la nourriture en surgira parce que l’ on aura su solliciter les puissances dispensatrices des biens. […] En fait, tout dépend des puissances surnaturelles, l’ action humaine est purement médiatrice107.

Children ancestors. The evidence that at the table dedicated to the Patriarch, not only the gods and humans participate, but also those who have died becomes especially explicit in some places, like in Cammarata and Troina. There, the young

105 106 107

Rundle Clark 1959, 119. See Eliade 1976, 363 ff. Gernet 1983, 47. Daraki 1985, 59. See Gernet 1983, 47; Propp 1978, 45; Bacchiega 1971.

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guests at the ritual table assume the same names as those that have passed away and thus reveal their own position as representatives of the ancestors. In Cammarata, in the Sicani mountains, the traditional ritual entails food and money alms from the women of the families who have obliged themselves toward the saint with a votive. This is followed by the arrangement of tables full of dishes and loaves of bread prepared by a group of thirty select women, and a banquet offered to the poor and children, representing the Holy Family. These can extend from a minimum of three to a maximum of thirteen members and are called i vicchiareddi (the old men). The holy guests are served at the table by the head of the family and taste all the food offered. At the end of the ritual they take the rest of the food along with them108. In Troina in the Nebrodi mountains, until just a few years ago the votive obligation (a prummisioni, lit. the promise) toward the saint was fulfilled by inviting the vicchjunedda (lit. the little old persons). Fari i vicchjunedda was understood to mean the organization of a table for a strictly odd number of children, which could stretch from nine to nineteen depending on the magnitude of grace required. The children, who indeed were called vicchjunedda, had to present themselves at lunch without having eaten any food during the morning. They were offered a meal in the house of the person who had taken the votive, a communal meal in which also adults took part. The number of dishes varied depending on the magnitude of the votive, but corresponding to the number of guests it had to be strictly odd. Significantly, the main dish was chickpeas, either together with pasta and seasoned with wild fennel, or chickpeas alone, upon which other mainly vegetarian dishes followed, like vegetable firstlings, boiled vegetables, thistles, fried cod, fruit (especially oranges), and sweets. In Troina, the proximity – if not a shared identity – between children and the deceased can be seen in another life cycle ritual, namely that of the vicinieddi (lit. the little neighbours). There was an always odd number (three or five) of neighbourhood children that were invited to the houses where a death had taken place a week or a month previously. The closest family member of the dead would invite them to consume a meal, also in this case after fasting, based on lentils and vegetables. Before they commenced the meal, the children would recite a prayer with the name of the deceased, for the purpose of arrifriscàricci l’ armuzza (lit. refreshing his soul), that is, of bringing him relief. It is significant that. It is significant that this ritual practice is often recalled by informants just contextually to the vicchjuneddas to report affinities and divergences109. U cunsulu da Bedda Matri. The chthonic-funerary dimension of the ceremonies for St. Joseph is also seen in the contexts where the meal of the Holy Family assumes 108 109

De Gregorio 2008, 66–67. Castiglione 2016, 176.

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the explicit meaning of a funeral meal, u cùnzulu (lit. consolation)110. A devotional tradition on the ›death of St. Joseph‹ does indeed exist in several figurative expressions, based on a passage of the 4th-5th century apocryphal text The Story of Joseph the Carpenter (12–32). In Alimena, for instance, the ritual of the table with the virgineddi represents u cùnzulu for the Madonna upon the death of her husband. In Leonforte, the artaru (altar) symbolizes u cùnzulu da Bedda Matri, that is the lunch which the apostles themselves and their relatives would have prepared for the Virgin Mary on the occasion of the departure of her husband Joseph; here, until just a few years ago, the song Transitu di lu Patriarca San Giuseppe (the passing of the patriarch St. Joseph), in the form of a lament by Mary on the death of her husband, was sung on the occasion of the ›funeral meal‹ for St. Joseph. In Niscemi as well the banquet, called cena, is considered to be a cùnsulu for the Madonna after the death of her husband. The night of March 18 is spent according to formalized arrangements of a funeral wake: people pray, but at the same time next-door neighbour and homies tell happy and funny stories, people admire the sumptuous altars and play music and dance. In Niscemi there is a reference to the death of St. Joseph also in the novena (i setti nuveri ri San Giuseppi or i setti ruluri ri San Giuseppi: the seven novenas of St. Joseph or the seven sorrows of St. Joseph), which takes place from the 12th to the 18th of March. During this time the altars are temporarily opened to the public in order to allow the performance of the songs: The sixth and seventh parts of the nuvera (traditional chant) deal with the death and the testament of the Saint: even today the oldest witnesses define it as u lamentu, a term which denotes, in many Sicilian villages, the dialectal songs narrating the events of the Passion of the Christ111. Along with the funerary aspect of the banquet in Leonforte, as in other towns such as Assoro, Bivona, and Mirabella Imbaccari, we also have the laments, which are polyvocal songs that tell of the passion and death of Christ, and which one would have expected to be performed only during Holy Week processions112. In Assoro and Leonforte the chants are performed by confrati (confreres) and elders in front of the altars in a religious atmosphere. The case is similar in Mirabella Imbaccari, where in the evening of March 18 the lamentanze (lamentations) are performed in front of altars set up in the homes of the faithful who have taken a vow, in a calm and formal mood. During the performance everyone else is silent, most of them standing, one or two sitting down; a few women, young and old, are moved to tears. At the end, the singers are offered food and drink. Both when they first appear and when they subsequently depart for a new altar, they offer their best wishes to the family. This last act is of particular importance since it rejects permanent continuity, in spite of the adaptation of the feasts of St. Joseph to the 110 111 112

Lombardi Satriani, Meligrana 1989, 139 ff.; Cavalcanti 1995, 84 f.; Giallombardo 2006, 69 f. Giallombardo 2006, 44. Macchiarella 1993.

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Catholic codes, of the archaic link between the figures of the ›otherness‹ which arrive periodically and human well-being and the seasonal and cosmic renewal113. It is here, finally, that the belief that the ›table‹ should be connected to u cùnsulu da Bedda Matri acquires a more articulated meaning: in the cùnzulu offered to Mary, the community shows its solidarity with the Mother of God, which reciprocally will be bestowed upon the community of the living in the form of well-being and prosperity. More generally, the community commemorates the death and the dead at a time when the return of life is celebrated, in the awareness that the eternal cycle of existence is destined to escape human control. Bread spirals. This is where the spiral-shaped loaves of bread called cudduri become significant. They are found in Mirabella and elsewhere in other ritual circumstances as well (for the Commemoration of the Dead in Calamònaci, Augusta, and Syracuse; for Good Friday in Longi), and they refer to the mysterious world of death and yearly rebirth. The cutting of them into two parts signifies the beginning of the ritual meal, through which the living will be united with the deities and with their ancestors in order to solicit future commitment to the living and to guarantee the cyclical renewal of life114. It is particularly significant, in fact, that the first piece cut from the cuddura115 that introduces the table of St. Joseph, at the beginning of the ›saints’‹ lunch and after having been tasted by the girl who represents the Madonna, is set aside to be dried, after which it is mixed with flour and wheat to be sown in the fall116. As Cirese has observed: »the form does not nourish, it conveys information and not calories«117. The image in the ceremonial bread of a double spiral – the union 113 114

115

116 117

Giallombardo 2006, 47. Filoramo 1993; Cavalcanti 1995, 57 ff.; Bolognari 2001; ThesCRA 2004, II, 247 ff. The ritual loaves of bread, like all dishes of the meal for the Holy Family (which traditionally may not include any meat dishes!), are to all effective purposes considered to be a ›bloodless‹ offering. This kind of offering is recorded e.g. by Paus.: Perieg., I, 38, 6; V, 14, 4 and 10; VIII, 42, 14. These offerings are not always consumed by fire but sometimes simply deposited at the feet of the gods: I, 18, 7; VI, 20, 2–3. See Ellinger 2005, passim; Pirenne-Delforge 2008, 234 ff. For ancient Sicily we may point to the mìlloi, the cakes in the shape of the female genitals that were offered to Demeter in Syracuse (Athen. XIV, 647a). The large circular bread features a relief of two opposing spirals or two female hands crossed over the chest. This image is considered to be a sign of Mary’s sorrow over her husband’s death. The bread, therefore, represents the Madonna. In the Catholic universe, the mother of Christ was able to re-assume some fundamental values of the female principle. A dual principle, liminal and therefore pregnant with that circularity between death and rebirth which the ancient Goddess impersonated, declined on spiritual isotopy by Christian catechesis (Giallombardo 2006, 47. See Buttitta 2020, 167 ss.). Perricone 2005, 18; Giallombardo 2006, 47–48. Cirese 1990, 34.

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of two twin elements – has been interpreted as a stylization of sexual intercourse due to the fact that the term used to indicate it, cùcchia, can mean ›intercourse‹ or ›female sexual organ‹ as well as ›couple‹ or ›pair‹118. Even if this etymological evidence and its concomitant simplistic aetiology of gender cannot be denied, it can nonetheless be added that the loaves are also part of an undoubtedly cosmological symbolism that is thoroughly attested: the double spiral is indeed reminiscent of very similar bas-relief decorations on two tomb doors from the Sicilian Bronze Age site of Castelluccio119, but also of the spiral motifs that decorate the clay objects of protohistoric island cultures, e.g. that of Serra d’ Alto120. A vitalistic-propitiatory value associated with fecundity and resurgence has also been attributed to the symbolism of the cuddura in Mirabella, as to the two stone slabs in Castelluccio. The double spiral suggests itself as a synthetic representation of opposing sexual and/or cosmic forces and at the same time as a symbolization of the cyclical process of becoming and periodic rebirth, that is, of the process of agricultural-chthonic creation and re-creation, to which the agricultural, cosmic, and human cycles are intimately connected121. This hypothesis is confirmed by contextual analysis. The double spiral on the loaves falls within a well-defined and historicized iconography – it can be compared with a long series of representations of spirals within the plastic and graphic arts, most having to do with the funerary sphere and with the sexuality and regeneration firmly rooted in Bronze Age and most likely Neolithic culture (it is enough to think of the images in the subterranean temples on Malta, or the necropolis in Newgrange, or the double spiral on the vulva of the Karanovo Venus). But it is the contextual reading that allows us to establish a clear relationship between Mirabella’ s cuddura and the doors from Castelluccio. The cuddura is the fruit of female labour and is destined to guarantee the future harvest. The bread is the door. The opening of the door, that is, the dissection of the liminal bread, is the significative and transformative act that introduces the myth into space-time. The door is the physical symbol of the passage from one space to another and of the transformation from one semantic state to the other122. The double-spiral bread is the diaphragm that, like the tombstone slab, separates the living from the dead, while also being the place and object that symbolically reunites the ones with the others. This introduces to St. Joseph’ s table and to the 118 119 120 121 122

Pitrè 1889, IV, 350; Uccello 1976, 68. Tusa 1994, 131–132; Uccello 1976, 56. Panvini 1996, 11. Gimbutas 1990, 279 ff. 293 ff.; Lurker 1995, 164 ff.; Guènon 1980, 46–54; Galletti 2015. Greimas 1995, 35; Zanini 1997; Burgio 2015. More generally it can be observed, as Bourdieu (2005, 374) does regarding the threshold of a ritual, namely that of the saints’ lunch, which in itself is seen as a movement between two different time periods, that the transitional periods have all the properties of the threshold, of the limit between two spaces, in which the antagonistic principles collide and the world turns inside out.

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banquet the element that will unite the dead and the living, gods and men. It is just like the tomb slab that opens onto the space where the relatives came to commemorate their dead with food offerings, thereby sharing the food with their ancestors and the divine powers, soliciting their commitment toward human beings and sustaining the cyclical reconstruction of life. This is the founding ideology of ceremonies like that of the tables of St. Joseph and Holy Week, a festive occasion also characterized in Sicily by different ritual behaviours and heterodox symbolism – significantly a vitalistic ambiance – such as the exhibition of physical energy, the orgiastic food consumption, and the display of evergreen branches and bread in the procession of the Resurrected Christ on Easter Sunday (such as e.g. in Casteltermini and San Biagio Platani). Conclusions. Whoever wants to find a reason for the material and immaterial expressions of ›popular religiosity‹123, and especially of the ritual symbolism that sustains the performative aspect, must confront the question of their historical and ideological genesis and of the morphological, functional, and semantic transformation that has affected them within the environmental, social, religious, political, and economic framework of the particular culture. It must be recognized that the festive calendar of a rural community should be observed as a coherent system that together with socio-political issues, both on the structural and symbolic levels, reflects the mythic-ritual scenarios connected to the schedule of the productive vegetal and animal cycles124. Recognizing the heuristic efficacy of an approach that examines the relations between forms, types, and times of production, and forms, contents, and times of the cult, and that examines the historical variability of these relations as a result of changing legal systems and political ideologies, of social regimes and religious orientations,125 allows us to understand more clearly the emergence and persistence of certain ritual symbolisms and cultic beliefs and practices. It is also useful to clarify the recurrence of analogous ritual symbolisms in cultures that never came into contact126. Despite deconstructionist and anti-historical approaches we can, finally, assert that a diachronic analysis and comparison – when carried out with care and intellectual honesty – can only benefit the advancement of knowledge.

123

124 125 126

On the ambiguity and variability of concepts like ›religiosity‹ and ›popular religion‹: Sobrero, Squillacciotti 1978; De Rosa 1979a; 1979b; Prandi 1977; 2002; Lanternari 2006; Terrin 2014. More generally also: Schmitt 1977; Ginzburg 1977; Isambert 1977; Vovelle 1977; Alvarez Santaló, Buxó Rey, Rodríguez Becerra 2003. Brelich 1954–1955; Servier 1962; Lanternari 1976; Dumézil 1929, 1986; Sabbatucci 1988; Propp 1978; Grimaldi 1993; Buttitta I. E. 2006. Cauvin 1994; Brelich 2007; Bourdieu 2012, 73 ff. D’ Onofrio 2018, 237 ff.

III. A Mother among the Branches. The Madonnas of the Trees in the Euro-Mediterranean Area In some Mediterranean regions, particularly in the islands, there are still – albeit among unaware transformations, recoveries, and true inventions – ceremonial practices and cultural acts that reveal, formally at least, a strong bond with the typical needs of an agricultural and pastoralism civilization. Among them, suffice it to mention: bonfires, ritual masking, and dances, ritually formalized food production and consumption, and cultually use of tree and plant foliage. The spreading and types of this rich symbolic legacy testify to the vitality of traditional religious culture and its adaptability – re-semantisation and re-functionalisation – to the ongoing changes in social and economic conditions and existential regimes. This ›resilience‹ of religious traditions, apart from being ascribed to their ability to meet timeless anthropological needs (protection, nutrition, reproduction) and to offer, from a religious point of view, answers to the new forms of precariousness affecting islanders’ societies, can be surely traced back to the needs of several communities to save and restore a cultural memory perceived as qualifying and establishing the sense of being there in asserting a specific identity, as well as policies for building a legacy and the promotion of ›local products‹ for tourism, not infrequently promoted by external agencies. Sometimes formally unchanged, though based on new senses and functions, other times recovered and transformed also in formal aspects, archaic ritual symbols and behaviours, therefore, up to this very day, year after year, testify to the persistent continuity of ritual structures and symbols and to renew the memory of a society that lived for thousands of years on agriculture and pastoralism. This is a solicitation to examine carefully, but without prejudice, the formal connections and similarities between the rituals of the past, including the distant past, and those of the present. Therefore I will try to do this by describing and analyzing the feast of the Madonna of the Myrtle di Palianis (Crete) in relation to other European arboreal rites. Cretan Background. Near the village of Venerato, along the road from Heraklion to Agia Varvara, on a hill set among the highest hills, rises the isolated female monastery of Palianis127. The spiritual centre of the monastery consists of the small stone church of St. Mary Panaghia built on a previous shrine area (probably

127

I visited the monastery in August 2013 for the first time, during a preliminary survey on Cretan pilgrimages led within the research project of the “Culture e Società” Department, University of Palermo. There, I had the chance to observe directly the festival of the Panaghia Myrtidiotissa in September 2015.

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devoted to Artemis) dating back to the 6th century B.C.128. At the monastery on September 23 and 24, they celebrate the Panaghia Myrtidiotissa. The festival includes a pilgrimage of faithful coming from Venerato and the neighbouring villages, the celebration of solemn religious services, and the procession of the icon of the Virgin of the Myrtle Tree around the church (circumambulation). The pilgrims bring with them special round loaves of bread, it is said in memory of the deceased family members: after the procession, the loaves will be blessed, cut up by specific operators, and redistributed among those present who will eat part of the bread on the spot and take part of them as a gift to friends and relatives. In addition to the loaves, numerous among the pilgrims carry the silver foil ex-votos which testify of miraculous healings from different diseases. The ex-votos are not deposited, as in other similar cases, close to the icon within the temple, but they are left hanging on the branches of a secular and impressive myrtle tree standing outside it, not far from the apse. It is believed, in fact, – as both the faithful and the pious nuns tell – that a more ancient and sacred icon of the Virgin is incorporated inside the trunk and that the one kept in the church is just a faithful reproduction: this makes the tree a sort of emanation of the icon itself and, in fact, a permanent epiphany (alive, present, and tangible) of Mary129. This peculiar relationship between tree and icon and the consequent perception of the tree refers to all the variants of the cult’ s founding legend: in order to rid of weeds and shrubs some land to be devoted to the crop, some peasants cause a fire which burns all the hill; some children, playing where the fire has taken place, discover an intact icon of the Virgin and the Child surrounded by painted myrtle branches; these miraculously sprout and end up covering it entirely until they become a tree (for this reason, the icon hidden in the trunk is said to be visible only to children). Another version has it that the fire of a hill covered by a myrtle forest destroys all the vegetation except for a single tree and the inhabitants of the nearby village of Venerato find the Marian icon stuck on the tree miraculously escaped from the blaze; every night the tree is cloaked in light and becomes a place of pilgrimage; with the passing of time, the icon is incorporated into the trunk, and the church is built beside the sacred tree. Another legend tells that after the 1821 looting and destruction of the monastery by the Turks, some local residents venturing through the ruins found the icon of the Virgin hidden in the branches of an ancient myrtle tree that already stood near the sanctuary. Therefore, the icon was put back inside the church, but from there, three times it returned to its myrtle, upon which it ultimately was left until it was entirely incorporated in the trunk. The cult of Panaghia Myrtidiotissa is recorded, besides in Palianis, into several other parts of Greece and the Aegean islands130. In Kythera, in a monastery

128 129 130

See Detorakē, Psilakēs 1986, 57 ff.; Buonsanti, Galla 2004, 71. See Florenskij 1977. See Bouras 1982, 14 ff. and 25 ff.; Paspalas 2008.

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located not too far from the village of Kalokairines, the icon of the Most Holy Theotókos Myrtidiotissa, the powerful thaumaturge and protector of the island, is worshipped. It is celebrated with pilgrimages and processions on Sunday of Orthodoxy (six Sundays before Easter) and on September 24. The legend has it that in the thirteenth century the icon was found by a shepherd at the foot of a myrtle tree. The shepherd picked up the sacred image and took it to his home, but the same night he dreamed of an angel who ordered him, in the name of Mary, to bring back the icon on the site of the discovery and to undertake to build a church devoted to Her. Another version of the legend has it that on September 24 the Mother of God appeared to a shepherd grazing his flock in a secluded valley and that She told him to look for Her icon, which had gone lost many years before. After having recovered from the shock and having long prayed to the Virgin, the shepherd looked for the icon and soon discovered it within a myrtle bush and decided to take it to his home. However, the following day, the icon was miraculously back in the branches of the myrtle. The episode was repeated three times, prompting the shepherd and the other villagers to promote the building of a small church (now incorporated in the monastery) on the site of the discovery. The cult of Mary of the Myrtle Tree is celebrated also in Naxos where, on a small island opposite the town, stands a church dedicated to Panaghia Myrtidiotissa and to Kamari, and in Santorini, where the Virgin is celebrated on September 24 with a procession. Similar forms of worship take place in Attica, Stamata, and Afidnai. Another monastic foundation linked to Our Lady of the Myrtle is that of Nea Moni in Chios. Its tradition is recorded by Nicephorus of Chios and Gregorius Photeinos, hegumens of the monastery between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nicephorus’ s Akolouthia – the result of the sedimentation of different local hagiographic legends both of popular and monastic origin – provides the best known version131. This states that, during the reign of Michael IV the Paphlagonian (1034–1041) and of Michael V Kalaphates (1041–1042), three hermit monks, Nicetas, John, and Joseph, eager to lead a life of strict hesychia, took shelter in one of the caves of Mount Provateion. Often, at nightfall, they saw a light shining in one of the groves at the foot of the mountain but without being able to identify its source. Thus, the three monks decided to set fire to the wood convinced that, if indeed there was a tree that radiated the divine light, it would certainly escape the fire. In fact, the vegetation was entirely burned except for one myrtle tree which remained intact ›like Moses’ s shrub on the Sinai‹, Nicephorus points out. When the monks came close to it, they saw that from one of the branches of myrtle hung an icon of the Virgin. Then, they decided to take the icon in solemn procession up to their cave but, shortly after, it miraculously returned on the branch of myrtle from which it had been taken. Therefore, the monks decided to build a small chapel in that same place. Later, an impressive monastery was erected 131

Cf. Bouras 1982, 14–15 and 25–27.

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by the will of Constantine IX Monomakh, whose election to the imperial throne the Virgin Mary had announced to the monks appearing to them in a dream132. If, therefore, the one of Palianis can be considered to be one of the many Balkan cults dedicated to the Virgin of the Myrtle Tree, however, it remains the only event during which the mythical tree can actually be observed (because it is recognized as such) and, for this reason, it represents one of the most vivid examples of the wide set of cults of the so-called Madonnas of the trees: a set whose analyses often lead to refer to pagan forms of worship and to evoke Greek-Roman gods and entities and female sylvan powers with an uncertain profile and unfathomable historical depth. Several points suggest the archaic antecedent of this specific Marian devotion: among these, on the one hand, the presence of material traces of an older sanctuary dedicated to Artemis, and on the other, the same ritual symbolism that unfolds on the occasion of the pilgrimage and the celebration. The dendrolatria, the ritual manipulations and the consumption of bread, the reference to ›the dead‹, the circumambulation of the sacred place all seem to go back, at least at a morphological level, to pre-Christian contexts and ritual modes. However, it is to be remarked that, beyond the objective and functional relationship between the ›sacred‹ tree, the Virgin, and the sanctuary, the symbols and their related ritual practices used in the course of this pilgrimage cannot be considered as specific to this cult, indeed being observed in a variety of still existing pilgrimages to Crete, Greece, and throughout the Aegean area and, more generally, with no substantial variations, in other euro-Mediterranean contexts. They should, therefore, be considered within the broader historical dynamics of the formation of beliefs and expressions of popular Christian religiosity in this area133. The fact remains that in addition to the legendary and material connection of the Virgin with the tree, which leads Cretan pilgrims to take away with them the ›powerful‹ branches of the latter for protective and therapeutic purposes, one is certainly surprised by the use of hanging votive offerings to the branches of the

132 133

Cf. Spagnesi 2008, 57–64. On the relationship of continuity between classical cultures and Christian culture Spineto remarks that it is a continuity whose strength and determinations should be investigated case by case, but that is historically indisputable. For certain ›pagan‹ and Christian rituals, because of the very fact that they are recurrent in the same interconnected geographical areas and time periods, we cannot take for granted any underlying heterogeneity but rather we should assert the opposite. The itinerary of the person who goes to the shrine of a saint or a Marian shrine to beg for the healing resembles much more that of the Greek person going to the Temple of Asclepius or that of the Roman person who goes to the temple of Diana and leaves a votive offering (and the resemblance is not just superficial nor external), than that of the pilgrim who goes to the Holy Land (2014, 70).

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tree, that is by the recurrence of ›archaic‹ ritual gestures, furthermore supported by similar reasons: the healing from an illness, the desire for safe childbirth, etc. History and folklore. But even before this kind of generic evidence of arboreal ritual uses in association with goddesses in the classical world134, going back to the Cretan area, we might recall the well known association between the goddess and tree in the Minoan era135 and some folkloric magico-religious practices documented on the island. As regards the first question, we recall how vegetable items assumed great importance of worship for the ancient inhabitants of Hellas and of the Aegean-Cretan archipelago. In particular, the worship of trees was closely associated with that of the Great Mother Earth136. »La constatation qui s’ impose est la présence universelle de la Grande Mère, qu’ on voit représentée avec des animaux divers (serpents, oiseaux, symbolisant les puissances de la terre et de la fécondité; grands fauves incarnant les forces vives de la nature), ou avec l’ arbre et la plante sacrée, voire avec la colonne et le pilier, dérivés de l’ arbre«, says

134 135

136

See Boetticher 1856; Philpot 1897. As an expression of the life-bearer plant energy and of the ascensional tension, the tree is a symbol that is widely recurrent in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean religions to evoke or represent divinity. Therefore, sacred trees and groves grow in the vicinity of temples and they become the place and object of worship. Many are literary and iconographic testimonies associating the tree with the epiphany of a god or goddess from the Aegean world as well as from the Mesopotamian one, from ancient Egypt and the Greek and Roman civilizations, not to mention those related to the Germanic world. In particular, the ritual and cult association between trees and female deities (either Madonnas or saints) is confirmed in a large area and it is connected in the Euro-Mediterranean area with the neolithic and protohistoric cults of the Great Mother (see Evans, 1901; Capdeville, 2003. See also: Boetticher 1856; Goblet of Alviella 1894, 118 and ff.; Philpott 1897; Gimbutas 1987 and 1990; Buttitta 2006b). Burkert observes that a recurring element in the Greek sanctuary is the tree »wie es MinoischMykenischer, aber auch orientalischer Tradition entspricht. Der schattenspendende Baum ist ebenso Inbild der Schönheit wie der generationenüberspannenden Dauer. Die meisten Heiligtümer haben je ihren besonderen Baum« (1977: 144). The tree is not an object of worship in itself: it is not a god, but a sacred centre. Offers are hanging from its branches or are deposited at the base of the trunk so that the divinity can consume them (see James 1990, 162 and ff.; Nilsson 1949, 262 and ff.). Specifically, we note that the myrtle tree is sacred to Aphrodite (see Philpott 1897, 37–38; Plut., Marc., 22); the statues of the goddess are carved in the wood of myrtle (Paus. V, 13); its branches are intertwined and form crowns for the bride and groom in Greece (Sutton 1981, 209 and 311 ff.) and in Rome (myrtus coniugalis: Pliny XV, 122) because it is associated with fertility and procreation; it is an instrument of purification (Pliny XV, 119). See Chirassi 1968, 17 and ff.; Detienne 1972, 81 and ff.). Myrtle garlands also appear in the Eleusis rite in honour of Demeter. See James 1990, 162 ff.; Pestalozza 2001.

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Lévêque137. A ring kept at the Candia museum, for example, depicts the trunk of a tree covered with sparse foliage and a woman encircling it with both her hands, on the left there is »An almost identical female figure in a flounced skirt with the upper part of her body naked, revealing prominent breasts. She is standing with her back to the tree and her arms extended to a third woman clad in the Identical manner as her companions«138. Elsewhere, one can observe zoocephalic genies pouring water on sacred plants, epiphanies of goddesses in sacred groves, scenes of adoration before aedicules, in which female deities are enthroned in front of trees and sacred pillars. These representations unequivocally refer to a religious belief system in which the tree, at the same time a tree of life and an axis mundi, represents the epiphany of the goddess who rules the cycles of life and presides over the cosmic139. Indeed, Eliade refers to this kind of iconic and ideological associations when he writes: The trees signify the universe in endless regeneration; but at the heart of the universe, there is always a tree – the tree of eternal life or of knowledge. The Great Goddess personifies the inexhaustible source of creation, the ultimate basis of all reality. She is simply the expression, in myth, of this primeval intuition that sacredness, life and immortality are situate in a ›centre‹.140

As regards the folk practices, instead, we remember an episode reported by Angelo Mosso in his account of the excavations of Hagia Triada: Nella villa di H. Triada, sull’ estremità settentrionale della spianata, vi è una piccola costruzione quadra con forti mura lasciate grezze all’ interno, che il prof. Halbherr crede sia il temenos o recinto dell’ albero sacro. Tutti i giorni per recarmi alla villa micenea passavo davanti ad un albero strano coperto di feticci. È anche questo un albero sacro. Vicino ad una chiesa diroccata vi è un olivo cui sono appesi i cenci che i contadini legano ai rami; e sono centinaia di brandelli d’ ogni colore, sfilacciati dalla pioggia e dal vento. Più volte mi fermai a contemplarlo, e provavo un’ illusione come se fossi portato lontano nei tempi micenei. […] Al piede del vecchio ceppo i polloni erano tutti fasciati con nastri di vario colore. C’ erano pezzi di stoffa nera di lana, fazzoletti rossi quasi interi, fettucce, e una moltitudine di brandelli: un vero campionario delle povere stoffe che vestono i contadini, abbandonato alle intemperie. Domandai cosa fosse la decorazione strana di quell’ albero, e mi fu detto, che quanti hanno la febbre di malaria la legano all’ albero con un pezzo dei loro vestiti, un fazzoletto od un nastro, e, fatta, la preghiera, sperano di ottenere la guarigione. […] La fede è forse maggiore 137 138 139 140

1985, 142. James 1959, 135. See Glotz 1969, 298; Gimbutas 1990, 221 ff.; Lévêque 1991, 163 and 167. 1958, 286.

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per la parte selvaggia della pianta, perché attorno ai rami spinosi fino a terra sono legati i cenci, inargentati dalla bava delle lumache, o chiusi ed accartocciati colla seta dentro cui fanno il loro nido gli insetti. E vidi inginocchiata una donna che pregava: così rinasce il culto degli alberi, perché l’ anima umana non cambia nell’ aspirazione sua verso il mistero e cede paurosa nella lotta contro le forze micidiali e cieche della natura141.

Although the logic underlying the behaviours – related to the same geographical and cultural context but temporally separated by over a century – of Palianis believers and the Hagia Triada countryside inhabitants are different (in the first case, ribbons, and votive offerings are hung on the tree to ask for grace and, above all, for grace received from the Virgin; in the second case, with ribbons and rags, previously entered into contact with the ill person, following a well-known ›magic‹ practice, they mean to ›hand over‹ the evil to the sacred power, the tree, or the one residing in the tree, which is able to neutralize it; we should note, however, that the tree stands next to a ›church in ruins‹ and the rite involves the recitation of ›prayers‹), the images offered as a whole by the two different objects of worship – trees of the different species covered the one of ribbons and votive offerings, the other of narrow ribbons and multicolored rags – are iconically very similar, in the same way as similar are the gestures articulated around the trees. The arboreal Madonnas in Europe. What we observed in Crete is a particularly effective exemplum of a broader set of practices and beliefs related to the arboreal Madonnas attested throughout Europe. As it is known, in fact, the iconic, mythical, and cultic relationships between trees, woods, and deities, not only female ones, are widely recorded in ancient Euro-Mediterranean cultures. On the other hand, European folk literature abounds with legends about apparitions of the Virgin and discoveries of Marian images near or among the same branches of trees and within forests, as well as news about the origin of their cults142. Numerous claims

141 142

1907, 167–168. See Gumppenberg 1839–1847; Nolan, Nolan 1997, 87–88; Hierzenberger, Nedomansky 2000, 12–17. About this, Seppilli identifies the occurrence of the following narrative patterns: a) ›tree hierophany‹: the Virgin appears among the branches of a tree, asks for a building of worship to be built on the site, the witnesses spread the news, etc.; b) an image representing the Virgin is placed on a tree by someone with a devout intent (I would add: it is found at its feet, among the branches, inside it, or close to it): the image reveals itself to be miraculous, its worship develops, a sanctuary (which often incorporates the holy image and, sometimes, the remains of the same plant) is built on the site of the discovery, etc.; c) the image representing the Virgin is already placed on the tree at the beginning of the story: the development of the story is similar to the previous (2008a, 539 ff.; see Salvatore 2002, 21 ff.).

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are recorded also in Italy, revealing in several cases, despite the ritual practices transformations, a persistent vitality of worship143. Among the Italian arboreal Marian cults we remember here, first of all, that of the Madonna di Bagni, analysed by Seppilli144: similarly to that of Palianis, it presents the legendary motif of the image that escapes a disaster145, and that of its progressive ›incorporation‹ inside the tree as well as the custom of hanging votive offerings to its branches146. In the case of Bagni in the same way as in that of Palianis, as well as in almost all the cases of ›arboreal‹ Marian worship, it is always the tree where the sacred image was found (or where the Virgin revealed herself) that becomes the first place of worship. It is, in fact, on the tree that remains placed and venerated the miraculous image from which the devotion originated or which was placed there in memory of the hierophany. There converge the first pilgrims. There are affixed the first votive offerings, as an act of thanksgiving and, at the same time, as public testimony and information about the graces obtained. The tabernacle is built there under the tree. And from there, where the cult originated, rarely deviates from the subsequent construction of the final sanctuary147. The latter is an act that often takes the form of conscious intervention by the Church aimed at bringing heterodox worship practices which appear to be rooted in pre-Christian magico-religious universes – such as the removal of parts of the tree for the preparation of ointments and healing potions, the rubbing the body on the bark, the deposition of offerings at its feet, etc. – into an officially acceptable order and form and, above all, under the supervision of the ecclesiastical authorities. Regarding the standardization and appropriation phenomena of the rural cults by the local church, a case in point is that of the Madonna della Quercia of 143 144 145

146

147

See Vecchi 1968; Dini 1980; Rivera, 1988, 351 ff.; Salvatore 2002; Faeta 2005; Seppilli 2008a; 2008b. 2008a; 2008b. »Né posso tacere che essendo caduta nell’ entrar di Settembre buona tempesta nel contorno, sfrondò tutte le quercie, che vestono il Colle, e paesi vicini, et à questa della Madonna non recò offesa nemmeno d’ una fronda, con meraviglia di molti che l’ osservarono« (Anonymous, Historia della Madonna del Bagno de Padri Casinensi di Perugia scoperta l’ anno MDCLLII, Archive of St. Peter, Perugia, c.10r, cit. in Seppilli, 2008b, 553). The foundation legend narrates the discovery, in the mid-sixteenth century, of an image of the Madonna and Child by a small merchant. Going through a forest on his way to the fair, he spots along the path the bottom of a cup depicting Mary, and he respectfully places it on a young oak tree between two branches that will grow up to inextricably enclose it in a sort of protective cocoon (Seppilli, 2008a, 543). Entrusting himself with the Virgin Mary on the occasion of a serious illness of his wife, he obtains the healing and makes the miracle widely known: the worship of this image spread out at once with great rapidity and soon the branches of the oak were covered with votive offerings (2008a Seppilli, 534, note 1). Seppilli 2008a, 541–542. See Salvatore 2002, 19 ff.

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Conflenti, a small farming village located on the slopes of Mount Reventino. The Marian sanctuary, which is located a short distance from the village within a vast forest of oaks, chestnut trees, and beech trees, is a place of pilgrimage throughout the year but particularly during the last weekend of August, the date on which its festival is celebrated. The origin of the worship of the Virgin is dated back to the second half of the sixteenth century, a period when several apparitions of female figures of uncertain supernatural origin and benevolent and providential attitude began to occur among the trees of the forest, one of which stood out for her attractiveness and majesty. Once the opposition of the Bishop of Martirano, in whose diocese Conflenti was situated, was overcome along with his deep concern about possible heretical deviations, the sacred character of the visions was recognised, the emerging female figure was identified with the Madonna, the rites were authorised, a temple was built, a pilgrimage developed148. Indeed, it is self-evident that the fact that the forest was visited for therapeutic purposes and the apparition of female entities was rooted in a system of practices and beliefs alien to Catholic worship. As one can deduce from the Sacre memorie della Gran Madre di Dio apparsa nei Conflenti sulla quercia di Visora, those who met on the wooded plateau and at the oak tree where the apparitions took place, especially at dusk or at night, practised forms of tree-worship for therapeutic purposes, touching the oak tree and the plants and bushes all around, uprooting twigs or the bark, rolling around on twigs and bark placed on the ground or rubbing with them the ill parts of their bodies, taking them to their homes149. And these were the reasons why, before deciding to build the sanctuary impelled by the insistence of the faithful supported by the Father General of the Capuchin Order, at the news of the spread of the cult the Bishop had all the vegetation growing on the plateau affected by supernatural events razed to the ground; he had forbidden the use of herbs, twigs, and tree bark picked from that place for therapeutic purposes; he had had an effigy of the Virgin Mary and a robust cross placed under the oak tree of the apparitions; he subsequently had the same oak tree cut down and its remains scattered; had the large number of votive offerings that the faithful spontaneously had accumulated around the tree collected and stored at the Curia150. What is relevant is that the Virgin or the indefinite female figures that descended on the oak cloaked in blinding and undefined radiance did not only intervene to heal the blind, the dumb, and the lame but also granted miraculous recoveries of the lost crop or about to be spoilt151. In this case, exactly like in the previous, in fact, the Virgin is asked to heal the ills of the body and to make the production cycles reach their complete fulfillment, that is to say, to secure and restore so much of the individual order as the order of time. 148 149 150 151

Faeta 2005, 173. Ibidem, 200. Ibidem, 198–199. Ibidem, 200.

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In this regard, it is worth mentioning the shrine worship of the Madonna del Carpine, whose temple is located near Rapino, a small town located on the eastern slopes of the massif of the eastern Maiella. The sanctuary, which probably dates back to the thirteenth century but was extensively remodeled in the early nineteenth century, stands in a peri-urban area, in the same place where the tradition places the apparition of the Virgin among the branches of a hornbeam. In fact, the foundation legend tells of a sudden manifestation of the Virgin Mary to a shepherd intent on guarding a herd of sheep near a grove of oaks and hornbeams. The young man was lying down to rest, when he was awakened by a rustling of leaves: between the branches of the tree had landed the Virgin, who spoke to him instructing him to go to his village and report her coming to the rest of the population. The shepherd immediately went to Rapino to announce the miraculous event and to guide all his fellow villagers to the site of the apparition. Arrived at the hornbeam, however, the Rapino people did not find the Virgin Mary, but her effigy. However, interpreting the finding as a sign of a divine gift, they took the statue away from the tree and brought it in procession to the mother church of the village. However, the following day, they witnessed another miracle: the statue had disappeared and no one had removed it. Our Lady had decided to go back to her hornbeam on her own. This further extraordinary event could only be read as a signum of the numinous will: that they should receive a new place of worship devoted to Her, in the same space which She had chosen. The Rapino community immediately undertook the building works and precisely in that oak and hornbeam grove they founded a new sanctuary. Inside it, on the high altar, they created a sumptuous niche reserved for the statue protagonist of prodigious events152. The Madonna del Carpine, like many other arboreal Madonnas, does not present exclusively thaumaturgic powers – these are witnessed by the numerous votive offerings on display next to the niche where the ancient statue lies –, but she is also proposed as a re-ordering guarantor of the cycles of life and time. In fact, she is attributed the power to make it rain in case of drought. And it is highly significant that the date of her celebration, May 8, dates back to a saving rain sent by the Madonna during the great drought of the spring of 1794 after the faithful of Rapino had gone on pilgrimage to her sanctuary begging for her aid. After all, what contributes to increasing the complexity of this Marian devotion background is the initiation echo of the ›procession of the virgins‹, girls aged between 6 and 12, and in any case in a pre-puberty phase153, which accompanies the processional statue from the parish church to the sanctuary of the Madonna di Carpineto and the distribution of devotional loaves of bread, specially prepared at all households in the village, that the same young virgins perform before the procession. In this practice, more than in the others, there emerges with clear evidence that 152 153

Salvatore 2002, 91. Ibidem, 95.

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the agricultural level that underlies the cult, apparently born as an expression of an agricultural society that could not imagine their sacral reference if not as a guarantor of life, and as such, the ›harvest donor‹154. Besides, the plurality of areas of intervention of the Virgin responds to the needs of those agro-pastoral cultures that have inhabited the peninsula for millennia and finds precise correspondence in the neighbouring Italic shrine of the Grotta del Colle, an underground cavity within which was found a small bronze statue representing a woman holding in her right hand a disc with three ears of wheat, maybe a flatbread, identified by scholars with Cerie Iovia. This evidence has led scholars to believe that in pre-Christian ages local people paid homage to a fertility goddess, giver of crops and therefore of life to a goddess linked to the earth and to plant life cycles155. Also in Sicily, we can find a significant occurrence of cults connected to the epiphanies of Mary or the discovery of her statues and icons close to trees and plants or in the woods (not infrequently, as elsewhere in Europe and Italy, in association with water sources). They are part of the vast set of Marian devotions (pilgrimages, rosaries, solemn services, and processions) following one another on the island throughout the year156. Moreover, as Pitrè already observed about the patron saints in Sicily: »la Madonna, ora sotto i diversi attributi consacratile dalla chiesa, ora sotto le qualificazioni tradizionali […], supera tutti e perfino lo stesso Dio«157. The ›lower classes‹ attribute extraordinary powers to a multitude of Mother-Madonnas, to whom special devotion is reserved, which tends to humanize the figure and gives rise to devotional forms with aspects and characteristics which are rather distant from the canons and models suggested by orthodoxy and the dogma. Following their need to make it their own, each community calls the Mother of God by a specific name, which refers to material and natural realities of the rural world, to geo-topographic data or landscape morphologies158 which find timely responsiveness and legitimacy in the founding legend of the sanctuary. Some scholars connect the rootedness and wide dissemination of the Marian cults not only to the emphasis on maternal and merciful characters of the Virgin, but also to the pre-Christian substratum. In Sicily, for example writes Martorana, female Saints, and Madonnas far outweigh the other Saints, »ed il fenomeno non

154 155 156

157 158

Salvatore 2002, 97. D’ Ercole, Orfanelli, Riccitelli 1997, 59. There are numerous sanctuaries cults that exceed the local dimension and among them: those of the Madonna di Tindari (Tindari, Messina), Maria SS. Annunziata (Trapani), the Madonna dell’ Alto (Petralia Sottana, Palermo), of Maria SS. della Milicia (Altavilla Milicia, Palermo), Madonna della Lacrime (Siracusa) (see Scellato 1983). 1900, XXIX. Cusumano 1991, 83.

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può essere di certo casuale. […] Esso si inserisce in una persistenza mitica del culto della Grande Madre mediterranea, a cui la Madonna cristiana si sostituì«159. Among the most important ›arboreal‹ or ›forestry‹ cults dedicated to Mary, we remind here that of the Madonna del Piraino di Salaparuta, both because of the recurrence of the theme of miraculous ›waters‹ and because of their power to bring rain. The tradition has it that a laundress, who had gone to a creek not too far from Salaparuta, found a painted stone, half a metre high and long, representing the Virgin Mother and the Child Jesus in her arms, sitting on a wild pear, and at the feet of the tree on one side the Baptist, on the other San Nicolò Bishop of Mira, turned toward the Virgin and the Divine Child who pray kneeling. According to the tradition, this stone was miraculously found in the fifteenth or sixteenth century on the banks of a stream, which is still called the stream or valley of the Madonna, east of Salaparuta; a small temple was built on its banks, but when it fell apart in the second half of the past century, it was abandoned and with the permission of Monsignor the Bishop of Mazzara, demanded by the clergy and the people of Salaparuta, the miraculous image patroness of the town was moved to another church in the north which had been made for the Madonna dell’ Itria, and after this, it began to be called the church of the Madonna del Piraino today adjoining the cemetery160. The image is now kept at the Mother church of the new Salaparuta (rebuilt after the 1968 Belice earthquake). The Madonna used to be celebrated on the last Sunday of April and was characterized by a procession of a statue depicting the stone image taken from the sanctuary to the Mother church. Throughout the month of May, took place i matinati with songs and the recitation of the rosary. On the last Sunday of May, finally, the statue was brought back to the shrine. The Madonna, in addition to healing, was also begged for her intervention in case of natural disasters, when the drought threatened the harvest, the people ran to the sanctuary, took the statue of the Madonna and carried it in procession to the Mother Church, to implore her and to beg for the desired rain. And many a time it occurred that despite a shining sky, as soon as the Madonna came out from her Shrine, it immediately began to rain between the emotion and joy of the promptly satisfied faithful. And it also happened that when the rain damaged the work of the fields, they resorted to the Madonna161. Today, to meet the needs of tourists and migrants, the festival in honour of the Madonna del Piraino takes place on August 28 and 29. Laurel processions. More than at the level of the foundation legends, a specific relationship between the Madonnas and plant elements is observed in Sicily at

159 160 161

1995, 9. Di Giovanni 1875, 44. See Lima 1984, 315. Graffagnino, 1969, 66.

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the festive practices level. In honour of the Virgin, in fact, there are processions characterized by the ostension of plant elements (flowers, herbs) and by the transport of laurel branches (use which, in general, characterizes various patron saint festivals of the territory of the Nebrodi and the province of Agrigento), often in combination with other ritual symbols of obvious agricultural and pastoral ancestry (bread distribution, simulacra runs, etc.)162. Here, we shall be giving only the examples of the Madonna della Lavina of Cerami, of the Madonna delle Grazie of Naso and of the Madonna delle Mortelle (of the Myrtle Tree) of Villafranca. a) Madonna della Lavina of Cerami. Near the town of Cerami stands a sanctuary, part of a Benedictine nunnery, devoted to the Madonna of Lavina. This sanctuary is a place of pilgrimage and devotion also to neighbouring towns, especially Capizzi and Troina. On its feast day, September 7, along with the painting of the Madonna of Lavina163, those who have made a vow (those who want to be granted a favour or those who have been granted one) carry in procession the bbanneri (large bundles of twisted laurel branches, which are very similar to those used for the festival of the local patron saint, St. Sebastian). The procession starts at the end of the last mass. It is opened by the laurel bbanneri followed by the banner of the confraternity and by little girls dressed in white with a long strip of blue cloth representing the Marian mantle. The marching band and the faithful stand behind the painting. Starting from the sanctuary, the procession goes back to the town. The sound of the drums, of the marching band, and numerous firecrackers accompanies the relentless procession which reaches the church of Maria SS. del Carmelo inside which the vara stops for a short time. Along the way, wine, soft drinks, and biscuits are offered. The procession continues through the steep streets of the old town, stopping at the churches of St. Anthony Abbot and St. Sebastian. Once the Mother Church is finally reached, the painting makes its grand entrance there. The bbanneri are placed on either side of the portal, while all the other components of the procession parade inside the sacred building. Finally, to the cheers of the faithful, the Madonna slowly comes in halting at the altar. Extremely interesting is the description that Pitrè gives of the decoration of the bbanneri. In fact, while today only bows, coloured ribbons, and sacred images are hung there, he also recorded the presence of food: »Alla bandiera vengono sospesi i frutti della stagione, e lepri, e conigli, e volpi, e testuggini, fazzoletti colorati, immagini della Madonna e non so quante altre cose«, which were promised by the faithful in

162 163

See Buttitta 1992, 2002a, 2006b, 2015. The picture was rescued from under the ruins of an ancient monastery, floating on the waters, after a torrential downpour. The presence of the Marian painting in the foundations of the temple had been previously announced in a dream to a nun who was not believed (see Pitrè 1900, 241–242).

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their vows164. Not long ago, therefore, while presenting the votive and penitential element, the entrance of the laurel bbanneri in the town marked more explicitly than today the cyclical incursion of the plant’s energy and abundance. b) Madonna delle Grazie of Naso. In this small town of eastern Nebrodi, on the Saturday after Easter Sunday, there is a procession of laurel branches in honour of the Madonna delle Grazie. Pitrè pointed out: In Naso la mattina del primo sabato dopo Pasqua, molte persone, precedute da un suonatore di tamburo, vanno a tagliare grossi rami d’ alloro nelle vicinanze d’ un lontano torrente, il quale perciò viene detto: ’ u vadduni ’ u ’ dàuru. A quei rami attaccano fettucce, pagnotte, melarance, altri ninnoli, e con essi alle mani, nelle ore p. m., accompagnano la Madonna delle Grazie, che lascia la sua chiesa per andare a passare nove giorni nella Cattedrale. È una processione che fa piacere a vedersi, ma quando finisce, succede sempre un gran baccano, perché tutti vogliono un ramoscello di quell’ alloro per portarselo a casa165.

Today, although popular participation has decreased, the ritual continues to involve many of the faithful. On Saturday morning some members of the organizing committee go and collect the laurel branches near the village where lush laurel trees grow. The laurel is brought inside a small church overlooking the main street of the village where the branches are decorated with ribbons, a few bows, and traditional bagels, i cuddureddi. The procession begins in the afternoon, after the distribution of the branches to a small crowd of children and teenagers. Followed by the faithful and by the marching band, they reach the Mother Church close by, where the processional parade, with the addition of the clergy and other devotees, takes a more orderly structure. The laurel bearers precede the archpriest, the pastor, and some crucifers. Behind these are the faithful who close the procession with the local music band. They all start towards the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which houses the painting of the Mother of God. Once there, they are greeted with a shot of firecrackers and a lively ringing of bells, the laurel-bearers arrange themselves in a semicircle in front of the entrance to the church. Moments later, carried on the shoulders, the canopy upon which the sacred image is laid comes out of the church, its bottom richly covered whit jewels, mainly in gold and coral. When the painting comes out of the church, the jubilant faithful rise and shake the branches of laurel. The procession, enriched with the Marian painting, descends back to the village, where it is welcomed by a lively burst of firecrackers. The Mother church bells ring in celebration. The painting, followed by the faithful and the laurel-bearers, enters the temple and is placed next to the altar. Holy 164 165

1900, 242. 1889, 255.

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hymns are sung and, finally, the Vespers are celebrated. On the following Sunday, in the late afternoon, the painting will return to its church accompanied by a new procession. On the occasion of this second procession, in the past, the faithful all carried a branch of elder in memory of the founding circumstances of the cult: Nella stessa chiesa [S. Maria delle Grazie] è custodita e venerata un’ immagine bellissima di Nostra Signora. […] Il Lanza afferma che la descritta immagine venne donata in Alcamo a Giampietro Galipò e Giuseppe Benedetto Maiorca, artigiani, entrambi di Naso, da un pio Religioso […]. I detti Galipò e Maiorca, dopo aver ricevuto la sacra effigie, tornavano in patria con l’ animo esuberante di gioia pel dono prezioso, che seco portavano. Giunti, però, presso Colliri, in quel luogo, sul quale si estendeva – allora – foltissima selva di sambuchi, ricevevano una grande sorpresa. La mula su cui avevano posta, con tutta riverenza, la sacra immagine, si fermava – d’ un tratto – piegando le ginocchia a terra. [Pertanto] il popolo fedele di Naso manifestò, dunque, unanime il desiderio di elevare un santuario nel luogo sopra indicato166.

c) Madonna delle Mortelle di Villafranca Sicula. The laurel also appears in Villafranca Sicula on the occasion of the celebration of the Madonna delle Mortelle (of the Myrtle) on the first Sunday in August (up to the mid-twentieth century, it was on the second Sunday of May). The sacred plant is an essential part of the decoration of the processional palanquins of Saint John and Saint Michael, whose animated processions follow the one of the Patroness. Besides, the whorshippers of these saints hold some laurel during the rigattiati (running and dancing of the processional palanquins). The association of the Madonna to the myrtle refers to a legend: one day a monk from Burgio was returning to his convent with two paintings of the Madonna. It is not known where he had taken or received them; the fact is that, having arrived at the convent, he became aware that one of the pictures was missing. He went back and, not without difficulty, he managed to find it in the middle of a clump of myrtles, whence he brought it to the monastery. However, to his great surprise, the following day he could no longer find it, and suspecting that Our Lady really wanted it either not to remain in the monastery or stay there in the bush of myrtle, he went back on the same way and found the mysterious image exactly in the site of the day before. This soon became well known in Burgio, in Lucca, and in Villafranca not far from where the image had been found; and it was firmly believed that the Madonna wished for a church to be built in that same place with the name and the picture of Maria SS. del Riposo, called Madonna di Murtiddi167.

166 167

Portale 1938, 151–153. Pitrè 1900, 406–407.

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A variant of the story, also reported by Pitrè, tells Friar Diego Ferrantelli from Burgio of the Third Order of St. Francis was carrying a rough canvas representing Maria del Riposo. Come on the road from Burgio to Villafranca, the picture stopped right in the middle of some myrtle trees on the edge of the road. Brother Diego informed the clergy of Villafranca of this marvel, and along with laity and the rest of the people they went to the place. They took the picture and headed to the village, but at some point, it became so heavy that it could no longer be carried on and they were forced to go back. At the starting point, it became heavy again. The experiment was repeated several times, giving always the same result, from which they deduced that the Madonna wanted to remain there168. Actually, the vegetable that today most markedly characterizes the festive rites in Villafranca is the laurel169. The sacred plant is in fact an essential component of the decoration of the processional palanquins of Saints John and Michael, whose animated processions follow that of the Patroness. It is also carried by the faithful of the respective saints during the rigattiati, races, and dances of the processional palanquins which can also be observed in various other centers of the area on the occasion of patron saint festivals (Calamonaci) and Easter Sunday celebrations (Lucca Sicula, Burgio, Caltabellotta)170. On the festival and the relative ritual use of myrtle and laurel branches, we have a precious testimony from the late Nineteenth Century, that of Isabellina de Luca: La seconda domenica di maggio, […], si celebra a Villafranca la gran festa cui prendon parte Burgio e Lucca. I tre paesetti han costumi e credenze religiose molto originali e ci danno lo spettacolo medievale, […], di partiti religiosi ed uno strano ed interessante esempio della rivalità di due Santi. […]. Non è credibile a quali mezzi lo spirito di parte spinga i fanatici devoti per far risaltare la superiorità del proprio protettore a discapito dell’ altro: non c’ è contumelia, non c’ è sfregio, non c’ è scherno che venga risparmiato. Il Santo del partito contrario è per loro men che un burattino: è un miserabile, ridicolo, insignificante fantoccio: è l’ idolo falso e bugiardo di un’ altra religione; contro di lui escono in escandescenze di mafia, minacciando di passare alle vie di fatto con il rompergli la testa (La testa della statua, s’ intende: perché poi per loro il Santo non è altro che la statua che lo rappresenta). […] La festa baccanale è una delle più strane che si celebrino nei nostri paesi. La vigilia, con gran pompa, San Giovanni e San Michele devono esser portati l’ uno dopo l’ altro, dalle proprie chiese alla cattedrale, per accompagnare il giorno appresso la Madonna nella solenne processione. Ma qui sorgeva anticamente la gran questione: quale dei due Santi doveva uscir prima? Inutile il dirlo, nes-

168 169 170

1900, 407, note 1. On the festive uses of laurel, see Buttitta 2006b. Bonanzinga 1999; Buttitta 2014, 203 ss.

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suno dei due partiti voleva cedere. Allora si pensò di estrarre a sorte chi dovesse avere la preferenza. E così si fa ora ogni anno. Fatta l’ estrazione, dinanzi alla chiesa del Santo favorito dalla sorte, tutti i partigiani di Villafranca, di Burgio e di Lucca si pigiano in folla rumorosa e festante. È allora che scoppia la tradizionale ed assordante salva di mortaretti che si ripercote fragorosamente per tutto il paesello. E quando poi la statua compare sulla porta, un urlo altissimo, prolungato di viva, che non sembra aver più nulla d’ umano, echeggia all’ intorno mentre, al suono delle bande e dei tamburi, comincia la fantastica e stranissima scena delle riattiate. Uscito appena di chiesa, il Santo è fatto girare vorticosamente su sé stesso: la processione s’ incammina: il Santo comincia a ballare a suon di musica, mentre tutti i fedeli, uomini, donne, ragazzi, agitando in aria verdi e lunghi rami di mirto e di alloro, ballano anch’ essi, senza posa, seguitando ad urlare i loro entusiastici evviva. […]. Ho detto ballo, e dovrei dire una vera e propria ridda: pazza, scomposta, scarmigliata, selvaggia. La strana processione percorre così la via per la quale il giorno appresso dovrà passare la Madonna. A scanso di liti, fu stabilito che la trionfale passeggiata non possa durare più di quattro ore, scorse le quali, il Santo deve trovarsi nella cattedrale ov’ è la Vergine: entratovi appena, l’ altro Santo esce dalla propria chiesa accompagnato dal suo partito, ed anche per lui si ripete, tale e quale, l’ originalissima scena. Dopo il vespro, una grande e fantastica fiaccolata, cui prende parte quasi tutta la popolazione, percorre le vie, mentre i devoti cantano l’ inno alla Madonna. Il giorno appresso, il paesello è tutto in festa. Il suono delle campane si diffonde giocondo nell’ aria profumata di quella dolce mattina di maggio: e mentre il sole nascente tinge il cielo di rosa, per le vie campestri che da Burgio e Lucca conducono a Villafranca, è un continuo accorrere, in gruppi festosi, di contadini – che vestiti di gai colori – alcuni a piè scalzi, in segno di divozione, recanti le loro offerte alla Vergine – vanno a godersi gli spettacoli di quel giorno solenne. La mattinata passa fra le funzioni di chiesa: ma finalmente, ecco il famoso mezzogiorno: la salva strepitosa di mortaletti, più rimbombante ancora del giorno precedente, che diffondendosi via via per i campi biondi di floride spighe e per l’ azzurro dei cieli, porta sino ai paeselli circostanti l’ eco della festa in nome della pia Vergine dei mirti… Indi, comincia la grande processione. I due Santi escono primi dalla chiesa, salutati da urla e da altisonanti evviva. Uno schiamazzo indescrivibile succede allora fra la folla urlante, entusiasta, compatta: una confusione immensa fra i devoti dei due partiti che cercano di schierarsi attorno al proprio Santo. Ma quando, sulla porta del tempio, la venerata immagine compare a’ suoi devoti, un silenzio profondo e religioso si fa tra quella moltitudine, istantaneamente. Ella incede sotto un ricco baldacchino dalle colonne dorate, ove, scintillando gaiamente al sole, stanno appesi anelli, orecchini, collane e tutti gli altri oggetti di valore offertile. Dallo sfondo scurissimo e misterioso del vecchio quadro, il pallido viso appare confusamente … La processione si mette in cammino, la Vergine avendo San Giovanni a destra

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e San Michele a sinistra. […]. I tre Santi percorrono così le vie del paese, ognuno seguito dalla propria musica. I fedeli sorreggono a piè scalzi e con le spalle denudate il baldacchino ov’ è l’ immagine miracolosa. Ora, non più urli, non più rami d’ alloro agitantisi in trionfo, non più la pazza ridda delle riattiati, la folla procede reverente e composta, giacché per le vie festanti ed inondate di luce la pia Vergine dei mirti passa severamente, benedicendo… Durante la processione, l’ immagine si ferma dinanzi alle case dei fedeli che le han promesso qualche dono, per riceverlo. I doni consistono per lo più in ceri e danari od anche, come s’ è visto, in oggetti di valore. Chi fa tali offerte offre anche – e generosamente – vino a tutti quelli che portano i tre Santi. […] Sull’ imbrunire la Madonna rientra nella cattedrale. I due Santi ora, a lor volta, devono ritornare nelle proprie chiese, seguendo l’ ordine inverso del giorno precedente; chi uscì per il primo uscirà ora per il secondo e viceversa. Rientrata la Vergine in chiesa il Santo che deve uscire per primo, ritorna in istrada; e mentre il giorno declina ed il crepuscolo invade man mano le vie, il baccanale ricomincia. A sera fatta, c’ è la strana illuminazione con la disa. Ognuno tiene in mano un fascio acceso di quest’ erba secca, agitandolo per aria: e, agli sprazzi vacillanti e rossicci di questa luce fantastica, il Santo ed i suoi devoti ripigliano, sempre a suon di musica, la pazza ridda del giorno avanti… Le famose riattiati raggiungono ormai la loro bacchica perfezione, grazie all’ entusiasmo ed alla rumorosa, irrompente allegria che il vino infonde alla folla: cosi illuminate, poi, offrono uno spettacolo più che mai strano e caratteristico. Così passa quasi tutta la notte171.

De Luca’ s description is substantially taken up, a few years later, by Pitrè who, to the feast of the Madonna delle Mortelle dedicates a few pages of his Feste patronali in Sicilia thus concluding: Quello che rimane di caratteristico e degno di ricordo è il ritorno dei due santi alle loro chiese dopo lasciata alla sua la Madonna. Stavolta il santo che uscì secondo, ha diritto di tornare primo; ed allora ricomincia l’ urlare tempestoso, la corsa infernale, resa più sinistra dalla sera che si avanza, dalle fiaccole di saracchio che illuminano la scena e dalla cascaggine dei devoti come annientati dalla stanchezza e dalle frequenti libazioni alle quali sono stati obbligati dai troppo zelanti compagni ed amici172.

171 172

De Luca 1894, 411–416. Pitrè 1900, 411–412.

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The festive scenarios described by De Luca and Pitrè remain substantially unchanged today both concerning the structure of the ceremonial process, the ritual symbolism and, last but not least, the wide participation in the rites of the inhabitants of Villafranca and neighboring towns. However, it should be noted that, transferred to the first Sunday of August to satisfy the participation needs of the numerous Villafranchesi emigrants who for the occasion reaffirm their belonging to the community, the festival has lost (not unlike what happened in the nearby center of Calamonaci) its original connotation of spring festival (»Maria sparmatu gigliu a primavera – di li murtiddi s’ intitulau ogn’ ura / và ’ mparadisu e porta bannera – cu fa festa a chista gran Signura« recite two verses from Li parti di la Madonna di li Murtiddi173) and has seen the spectacular aspects grow more and more also due to the growing interest in the patrimonialization of intangible assets. On the days of the festival, the town is conspicuously colored with the blue of the sammichilara (Saint Michael’s devotees) and the red of the sangiuvannara (Saint John’s devotees) in the clothes of the devotees and festive decorations, illuminated with sumptuous lights, resounding with the music of bands and folk groups and the explosions of phantasmagorical fireworks displays, it comes alive with costumed processions and dramatic performances inspired by the lives of the saints and the Madonna174. Together with the processional display of laurel fronds (and, once upon a time, also of myrtle) the peculiar and characterizing element of the festival remains the rigattiati, a dance action that takes on, here as elsewhere, an agonal character, configuring itself as a moment of expression of virile energies both directed to affirm the ›masculine power‹ of the community (it is no coincidence that they are traditionally performed by young bachelors) and, not secondarily, as a ritual action of an initiatory and propitiatory nature (this is how the dance and the race can be read, and the ›struggle‹ itself between rival factions)175. Among the purposes of the rigattiati are therefore those of demonstrating the acquisition of a virile status by young people and of soliciting and supporting the spring rebirth: facts that take on particular relevance in association with the Marian divine feminine. The festive use of laurel and other evergreen plant foliage, on the other hand, confirms and reinforces the very meaning of the dance of the saints. The tree, bearer of fertility, bursts into the tamed space of men and, with its joyful and frenetic movement, recasts and regenerates the consumed space and time.176

173 174 175 176

Li parti di la Madonna di li Murtiddi, in «Il Messagero», Villafranca Sicula, n. 47 (feb. 2014), pp. 9–10. Cf. Bellantonio 2012. Cf. Van der Leeuw 1975, 356; Eliade 1999, 57 ss.; Casadio 1982. Giallombardo 1999, 108.

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In these cases the tree seems to become a cosmogonic ideogram177 and the ceremony a representation and stimulation of the periodic regeneration of life through the expression of strength and eros178. Indeed, Mary is the mother par excellence, the one from whom the life of Christ springs and the guarantee of continuity of life for men. Like the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and protohistoric Mothers, she is the queen of the cycles of time and life. This aspect clearly emerges from an examination of a text from Mazzarino dedicated to the Baby Jesus, that is, with some variations, widely disseminated179. Presented by Turone, author of the collection, as a ›prayer‹, its rhythmic cadence rather suggests that it is a nursery rhyme, perhaps an integral part of a game. Vigo inserts it, in fact, in section XXVII of his Raccolta amplissima, dedicated to children’ s songs and games180. These are the lines: »Balla, balla Bammineddu, / ca lu chianu è tuttu tó, / unni posa u tó piduzzu / nasci gigghia e basilicò; / ti ni cugghi ‘na schucchidda / e la purti a mamma tó, / si la minta ntu pittuzzu, / dance, dance miu Gesuzzu! (Dance, Dance Child, / that the field is all yours, / where you place your foot / lilies and basil grow; / you pick up a bunch / and take it to your mother, / who places it on her chest, / Dance, dance my little Jesus)«181. The Divine Child dances on the field and where he places his foot lilies and basil arise. Dance is life, it is the beating rhythm of the heart. Beating the earth, trampling it vigorously is equivalent to plowing it, and working the earth means owning it by activating the generation process. The dance of Gesuzzu, therefore, similarly to the dance of Śiva, lord of the liṅga, consort of Śakti-Devī, rhythmed by the drum he carries in his hand, »is an act of creation. […] It has a cosmogonic function, in that it arouses dormant energies which then may shape the world«182. Final remarks. Remote places, far away from human society (forests, spots, mountains, ravines, etc.), full of pre-Christian magico-religious beliefs183 and theater of uncanny manifestations184, are the elective location of Marian epiphanies or the discovery of sacred images; the Virgin is begged for healing from illnesses, child protection, abundance, rain, the resolution of natural disasters; plant elements

177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184

Eliade 1976, 272. Buttitta 1990, 40.. Vigo 1870–74, n. 2318; Favara 1957, 385 nn. 654, 423, 720; Acquaviva, Bonanzinga 2003, 27–28. Vigo 1870–74, 405 ss. Cit. Turone 2002, 22. Cf. Castorina 1990, 124. Zimmer 1962, 152. Cf. Pestalozza 1964, 373; Wolkstein, Kramer 1984, 84 ss. e 167; Lévêque 1991, 92 ss. See Manselli 1980 and 1985; Le Goff 1988; Grégoire 1990; Chuvin 1990 and 2004. First of all, of fairies who, not surprisingly, share with the epiphanies of Mary the beauty of their features, the candour of their garments, their splendour, etc.: see Harf-Lancner 1984; Faeta 2005, 179 and ff.).

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(and, often, water ones) are consistently associated with them at a narrative and iconographic level, not infrequently also at a ritual one; in the rituals devoted to them is recorded the recurrence of bread and ritual branches distribution, signs themselves of the renovatio temporis associated with food. None of these motifs and elements constitute a peculiarity of the cults of the sylvan Madonnas, but they all combine to delimit their ›agrarian‹ characters and to report any relation to the obscure powers guaranteeing life cycles. Several scholars have indeed undertaken to demonstrate the relationship between popular Marian cults and those devoted to different pre-Christian goddesses and to show the persistence of images of Paleolithic and Neolithic Mothers, goddesses of Life and Death, parents of Nature and the Cosmos in Marian iconography185. It is irrefutable that a whole series of Ladies of the animals, plants, and woods; Powers of the waters, caves, and peaks; Protectors of women in labour and infants, Goddesses of love and death; Mothers of plants; all ambiguous, and never fully defined, have populated the imaginary for millennia reaching to their Christian expressions through complex and contradictory events. However, this is not the place to dwell on the wide dissemination of the mythical and ritual theme of the Great Mother or the divine feminine in the Euro-Mediterranean area, on its articulations, folklore outcomes and debate186. I will only point out how any discourse on the relationship between the Madonnas, the female Saints, and plant elements cannot ignore the fact that sacred conceptions and uses of the tree were widespread in the Mediterranean area, precisely in relation to the worship of female deities, at least from the Bronze Age187. Of course, this does not mean that we can observe an uninterrupted continuity of ancient religious beliefs and practices in every single local cult, but it reminds us that, when addressing the analysis of expressions of popular Christianity, we should take into account the recurrence of some cultural and behavioural patterns whose persistence could be related at least to some extent to the retention – in the European countryside until fairly recent times – of some essential lifestyle features and existential framework

185 186

187

See James 1959; Warner 1980; Neumann 1981; Baring, Cashford 1991; Pestalozza 1996 and 2001; Gimbutas 1987, 1990 and 2005; Campbell, Eisler, Gimbutas, Muses 1992. The existence of the prehistoric worship of a female deity bearer of fertility and abundance, then modified in a variety of cults, is a recurring theme in historical-religious and folkloric literature. Though apparently supported by varied archaeological and documentary evidence, such a hypothesis has however been subjected to coherent critique by several authors (e.g. Georgoudi 1994. See Buttitta 1995). As said above, clear traces of female cults associated with arboreal symbolism are documented in the Minoan era (see Evans 1901). In these contexts, the tree or the pillar represented the place where the deities revealed themselves (see Burkert, 1983, I 43 and 59. See Nilsson, 1949, 272). The Cretan one is not the only context where evidence of an association of female deities to trees is clear (for Mesopotamia see Wolkstein, Kramer 1984, 27–30; for Egypt see James 1990, 142; Campbell 1992, 66 and ff.).

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elements which had characterized pre-existing rural societies188. Observing that besides having thaumaturgic powers, the Madonnas (not only arboreal or sylvan ones) are often bearers of abundance and human, plant, and animal fecundity (increasing procreative faculties, promoting breast milk production, protecting infants, ensuring the proper development of natural cycles, etc.), one can reasonably assume that the cults addressed to much older expressions of the sacred feminine have contributed to the definition of their characteristics189. Concerning that, it should be noted that among monotheistic religions, Catholicism is the one that has granted more female cults even at an official level, at least since the Council of Ephesus, thus allowing the rise and the further development of forms of Marian devotion certainly indebted to pre-Christian practices and beliefs. Still, in the first centuries of the Christian era, Ephesus was one of the main centres of the cult of Artemis, »an earth-goddess, associated essentially and chiefly with the wild life and growth of the field, and with human birth«190. Precisely about this substratum of beliefs and practices, cults devoted to Mary were widespread and amplified in the Christian communities of that area. After an initial reluctance due to the fear that forms of ›pagan‹ worship could merge and consolidate around her figure, Christian senior prelates, meeting in 431 A.C., decided that Mary had too many followers and that the best thing the Church could do was to canonize her. Mary was officially declared the Mother of God, and the day traditionally dedicated to the celebrations in honour of Artemis – August 15 – was chosen as the holy day of ›Mary’ s Assumption into Heaven‹191. Besides giving a decisive impulse to the institutionalization of the Marian cult and the proliferation of images and local cults of the Theotókos, the Ephesian story will come to constitute itself as an ideal model to comply with at the time of the evangelization of rural societies. Already in the early Middle Ages, then, direct worship of female deities with more or less well-defined features, inhabitants so much of the domestic hearth as of water sources, caves, forests, trees, and betyls, were therefore normalized and readdressed to the Virgin Mary and the female Saints with appropriate measures192. Moreover, this gave rise to a »processo di frantumazione della figura di Maria in una miriade di figure locali processo di frantumazione della figura di Maria in una miriade di figure locali«193. In light of what has been observed above, it can and should be critically discussed how and to what extent the single Madonnas and female Saints related to trees, betyls, caves, and water sources overshadow nymphs and ancient goddess188 189 190 191 192 193

Seppilli 2008a, 545. See Di Nola 1971. Faeta 2005, 205. Farnell 1896, II 456. See Liungman 1937, 223–238; Guthrie 1955, 101; Lévêque, Séchan 1990, 353–357. Harrison 1992, 37. See Turner, Turner 1997, 201 and ff. See Romano 1997, 18; Salvatore 2000, 116 and ff.; Spera 2009. Seppilli 2008a, 537. See Warner 1978

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es. However, the persistence and/or reactivation of religiously oriented acts and words in relation to specific places of worship cannot be questioned, as well as the reproduction (the refunctionalization and resemantization) of ritual forms and beliefs of remote ancestry in sanctuaries established in the late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and beyond194. As noted by Delpech, myths and rituals les plus enracinés dans les tréfonds historiques, voire préhistoriques, d’ une culture, sont souvent ceux qui manifestent la plus grande ténacité: dotés d’ un pouvoir de suirvie et de renouvellement interne, ils semblent parfois se perpétuer et se transmettre bien au-delá de leurs contextes originels. Non sans occasionnellement se régénérer, adopter des formes nouvelles, se charger de significations inédites195.

Thus, looking at the Madonnas of the trees, once again we understand how not taking into account the historical depth means for the anthropologist to give up an integral vision of the reality with which he or she is measured and which he or she tries to interpret, giving rise to narrow results with a resurrection of a trivially sociological perspective, in many cases hidden under the false pretences of social anthropology196. The effects of such a surrender are particularly evident when we explore the symbolic dimension. In fact, a purely synchronic approach proves to be totally inadequate: Prestare attenzione ai processi di costruzione del senso e alle stratificazioni che, a partire da un passato più o meno remoto, su un determinato evento della contemporaneità si sono sedimentate, valutare come nell’ articolazione della dimensione simbolica ›la storia faccia prepotentemente la sua parte‹197, interrogando con spirito aperto un insieme di fonti eterogenee, significa restituire spessore e corposità alla ricerca: comprendere la natura profonda di ciò che sovente appare come manifestazione estemporanea; avvicinarsi, con ciò, alla complessità dei retroterra che sostanziano le pratiche politiche contemporanee198.

194 195 196 197 198

See Marignan 1899; Brown 1983; Lane Fox 1991. 1991, 10. Faeta 2005, 171 and ff. Buttitta 1996, 118. Idem

IV. The Cerami Circu. An initiation rite in rural Sicily In Sicily, there are still institutional manipulations, albeit among unaware transformations, recoveries and true inventions, ceremonial practices and cultural acts that reveal, formally at least, a strong bond with the typical needs of an agricultural and pastoralism civilization. Among them, suffice it to mention: bonfires, ritual masking, palanquin dances, and races while carrying the statues of saints, ritually formalized food production and consumption, and the processional use of plant foliage. The spreading and types of this rich symbolic legacy testify to the vitality of traditional religious culture and its adaptability – re-semantisation and re-functionalisation - to the ongoing changes in social and economic conditions and in existential regimes. This resilience of religious traditions, apart from being ascribed to their ability to meet timeless anthropological needs (protection, nutrition, reproduction) and to offer, from a religious point of view, answers to the new forms of precariousness affecting Sicilian society, can be surely traced back to the needs of several communities to save and restore a cultural memory perceived as qualifying and establishing the sense of being there in asserting a specific identity, as well as policies for building a legacy and the promotion of ›local products‹ for tourism, not infrequently promoted by external agencies. Sometimes formally unchanged, though based on new senses and functions, other times recovered and transformed also in formal aspects, archaic ritual symbols, and behaviours, therefore, up to this very day, year after year, testify to the persistent continuity of ritual structures and symbols and to renew the memory of a society that lived for thousands of years on agriculture and pastoralism. Looking at the space-time organisation and at the symbolic contents (actions, words, material elements, and so on) of the celebrations that mark the time of the island communities, mostly those located in internal and peripheral areas we can also observe how the main ritual elements are connected to the key moments of the traditional ergological agricultural and grazing cycles and are based on symbols of the related forms of production. In particular, the organisation of the traditional ceremonials calendar is clearly connected to the wheat cycle. Within it, we can find three periods, only partially attributable to seasonal changes. The ceremonial cycles marking the three periods are: All Saint’ s Day – All Soul’ s Day, St. Joseph – Holy Week, St. Anthony of Padua – St. John the Baptist – St. Calogerus. They are real transitions: the first one is connected to an external-internal movement of the wheat seed; the second to the transition from inside to outside of the sprouted plant; the third one to the removal of the plant from the ground, that is the harvesting and storage of the seed. Indeed sowing is done between the end of October and the beginning of November; complete sprouting and plant growth occur between March and April; the harvest starts in June.

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These periods are generally different from the qualitative point of view and, as regards the celebrations, they are characterised by the presence of peculiar ritual symbols: the ceremonies in the autumn/winter period reveal their relationship with the chthonic dimension through the presence of the dead represented by masks, poor people, or children as well (all of them being protagonists of offertories or collective meals), by the ritual eating of unmilled seeds, by the lighting of bonfires with particular connotations; the spring/summer ceremonies, which are more evidently linked to the uranic dimension, are mainly full of palanquin dances and races, of games and fights, the offering of the first fruits, the procession of plant elements, and the offerings and ritual eating of bread; finally, the time from the harvest to the next sowing is articulated into several celebrations of Saints from June to September. They are ›thanksgiving‹ celebrations, in which several elements not immediately connected to agriculture activities, converge. In the celebrations of the Saints, in fact, society celebrates itself, its wealth, its devotional dependence, and its belonging to the ›uniqueness‹ of worship. Of this rich and complex celebration universe, we will only mention here some ceremonies characterised by a more explicit plant symbolism, pointing out only incidentally on the one hand the widespread practice of displaying flowers and fruits on the procession simulacrum, that is, with a clearer reference to the productive cycles, broad beans and bunches of wheat ears, an event observed in particular during spring celebrations devoted to St. Joseph (March 19th) and the Holy Crucifix (May 3rd) and the summer feasts devoted to the patron Saints; on the other, the occurrence in Sicily, as well as in other European regions, of ›arboreal‹ Madonnas. A particular kind of celebration characterised by laurel branches variously styled that are carried by the faithful in processions can be observed in several celebrations in the Nebrodi area: as already said, in Tortorici the laurel in procession appears during St. Sebastian’ s winter celebration; in Troina, St. Sylvester’ s laurel is carried in procession, after some devotional pilgrimages for its harvesting, on two different occasions: the second to last Sunday of May, on foot (i rama), and the last Sunday of May, on horseback (u ḍdạ̀ uru); in Gagliano Castelferrato long poles decorated with laurel and strips of coloured tissue paper (i virghi) are carried in procession in honour of St. Cathal (August 29th); in Cerami, during celebrations for St. Sebastian (August 27th) and the Madonna della Lavina (September 7th), some complex artifacts for the processions are totally made up of laurel branches (i bbanneri), in order to be carried in procession with the respective statues. Laurel is also carried in procession in Regalbuto, on August 8th, for St. Vito (i ntinni), in Naso, the first Saturday after Easter for the Madonna delle Grazie (u ḍḍàuru), and in San Marco D’ Alunzio, on July 31st, for St. Basil the Great. In some cases, as in Cerami, laurel is used in several events (St. Sebastian’ s celebration, feast for the Madonna della Lavina, winter celebrations in honour of St. Anthony Abbot, St. Sebastian, and St. Blaise), taking different shapes and names. The characters of the ceremonies of the passing of the seasons are present in all these rites: the presence of evergreen plants, the exhibition/display of manly

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behaviours by younger members, the ostentation and prefiguration of food abundance through storage and re-distribution of food. The Circu in Cerami. The city of Cerami rises 970 meters above sea level, in the Nebrodi mountains. It has about 3,000 inhabitants, many of whom for work reasons spend most of the year in other locations. The economy is deeply connected to the surrounding area, where livestock and agricultural production, especially of cereals, are important, as is the exploitation of the forest that covers a part of the land. Cerami is thus one of many towns in the Sicilian hinterland where a coherent ceremonial calendar persists. The celebrations that most involve the community, but with events that are also known to a wider external public, are those of Holy Week and those dedicated to the Patron Saint Sebastian (in August) and to the Madonna della Lavina (in September). These ceremonies are interspersed with ›minor‹ festivities which are more or less consciously connected to agricultural-pastoral production. They mark off social phases and are carried out by groups who are identifiable territorially (through the so-called quartiere or neighbourhood) or on the basis of occupation. Among these minor festivities, the ones in the winter dedicated to Saint Anthony the Abbot, Saint Sebastian, and Saint Blaise are especially important. These festive rites, which collectively mark the most critical moment of the winter season, are characterized by attitudes and symbols that seem to seek protection and future abundance, and they are clearly opposed to the great ceremonies of atonement and thanksgiving to Saint Sebastian and the Madonna della Lavina, at the end of summer. The unusual feature of these winter rituals is the circu (pl. circhi), a truncated conical structure covered with plants and food, which is the object of a contest. One or more of these structures is made on all three winter occasions, by the faithful of the individual parishes: traditionally, one circu is offered collectively by the parish confraternity, while others are offered by individual members who thus fulfill their contractual vows, the prummisioni. The preparation of the circhi merits a brief description. We shall take as our example the confraternity circu that is constructed on January 19 in the sacristy of the church of Saint Sebastian. The circu takes its name from the circular base, called circu or arbura, with which the construction begins. The arbura is made of a 7 cm high wooden rhombus that is bent into a circle of about 90 cm diameter and in the center of which a sturdy wooden cross is placed, held in place with iron wire fixed at the edges. At regular intervals around the arbura are tied the lower ends of eight laurel rods about 3 m long (the mastri). The upper ends, which still have leafy branches, are tied around a wooden cross, the crucera soprana, so that a pair of branches rests within each quadrant. A thick rope is tied to the crucera according to a technique known locally as votamanuzza, which leaves two loops (the ghiacchi) free. The rope offers greater stability to the top of the structure and will allow it to be raised during subsequent phases of the ritual. The end result is a roughly conical structure.

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This cone is covered with laurel branches, with the leaves pointing downwards. The structure is filled with further laurel leaves, the inchimientu, until a full and homogenous surface is achieved. The circu is moved from the sacristy to the nave, and the faithful who have taken the vow, as well as their family and friends, then cover it with circular loaves of bread, the cudduri. On the inside of each of these loaves, an orange has been baked in. Once the circhi have been decorated inside the church, some confraternity members go up on the roof. From there, several tied up napkins containing sugared almonds and candies are thrown at the crowd gathering below. The bells begin to ring and the circhi are raised up by hand, each by four brothers, and brought to the side of the shrine, where strong ropes supported by pulleys have been placed. The brothers are preceded by the dry and incisive rolling of two drums in copper casings. Each circu, hooked to a rope, is then raised about six meters above the road. Fireworks indicate that everything is ready for the contest to begin. At each end of the supporting rope, a group of eight or more robust youngsters are arranged, while other boys, some of them barely beyond adolescence, position themselves under the circu. Those who must show courage and skill grab and hang on to the rods that cross the arbula perpendicularly, and try to bring down the circu, as the crowd awaits impatiently. It is no easy task: those who are holding up the structure try to prevent it from being brought down by lowering and raising it with a vigorous jerk if someone manages to latch on to it. When someone finally succeeds in bringing the circu to the ground, the crowd rushes at it, stripping off the loaves and oranges, which are eaten on the spot or given as a gift, together with the laurel branches, to those who could not take part in the ceremony. The Pagghiaru in Bordonaro. We find a similar case in the Pagghiaru of Bordonaro. The festival is celebrated every year on January 6, and takes its name from the unique structure around which the celebratory ritual is organized, something halfway between a Christmas tree and a greased pole: the former because of the multicolored decorations and the shape, the latter because of the food prize – usually sausage – attached to the top. Local tradition has it that a community of Basilian monks, who settled near the town around 1100 introduced the festival, and in fact the area bears traces of settlements that are attributable to the monks of Saint Basil. The rite begins in the days just before the Epiphany, when the committee responsible for the construction of the festive object collects the construction material required by tradition in nearby districts according to availability. The committee is also in charge of begging for the funds necessary to make the festival a success. Once everything has been collected, they prepare the pagghiaru, which will be raised in the center of the main square. The preparation of the structure begins at dawn on the fourth day and ends the following day, when it is covered with leaves and branches. The actual decoration, however, is carried out on the morning of the sixth day.

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The pagghiaru is a complex wooden structure composed of three main elements: 1) a sturdy chestnut pole about nine meters tall; 2) a conical shape made of branches intertwined on thick stakes (usually twenty-five of them) and then covered with generous amounts of myrtle and wild acacia leaves; 3) a complex circular construction, the crucera, consisting of two superimposed wheels, each of which is formed by two iron semicircles and inside of which there are four chestnut boards in the shape of a double cross. The crucera, which will be placed into the conical covering and thereby raise it up, is inserted on the stake and fastened to it through a pulley on its top. Its function is thus to support the conical part and to connect it to the central pole. The ›tree‹ that thereby takes shape is richly decorated with oranges, lemons, salt-free bread doughnuts (cuddureddi), cotton tufts, and colored cardboard discs. At the top of the tree is a wooden cross, onto which are skewered oranges, bread, and sausage chunks, all of it surmounted by a bread star, which is the prize for winning the contest. In previous years the prize had also included a kid goat, which was usually tied to the foot of the tree. On the morning of January 6, the community engages in a series of collective games: from cross-country running to sack races, to the more traditional game of li pignati (where a blindfolded person tries to hit earthenware pots hanging by a cord, some pots containing gifts, but most of them water or ash). Food also marks the festive nature of the day: homemade macaroni, oven baked meat, sausage, and lots of wine. Around 3 p.m. a band, preceded by the civil authorities, tours through the town and then stops at the foot of the tree, under which it performs various musical pieces; a group of pipe players from neighboring villages also participate. At the end of the concert, the band and the citizens move on to the church of Saint Mary of Graces, where they celebrate a mass. At the end of the mass, a procession is formed with the parish priest at its head, followed by the band, the pipers, and the remaining congregants. Setting out from the church, it stops at the foot of the pagghiaru and blesses it. During the blessing, contestants nervously begin to prepare themselves on the starting line, about a hundred meters from the finish line. They are about twenty years old and are excellent athletes; their number varies from year to year based on safety regulations from the authorities. They have companions stationed under the tree who will help them in the difficult initial phase of climbing when they have to leap upwards. At 4:30 p.m. the short but frantic race begins. Winning is important: it would entail respect from one’ s peers and prestige in the town. The youngsters quickly reach their companions, who hurl them onto the tree. The ascent is dramatic, and the large green cone shakes visibly under the weight of the men pushing and kicking each other in order to win the trophy. The contestants sink in among the branches and there is a great tangle of leaves and bodies. Some slide down, dragging a competitor with them, others extricate themselves and ascend quickly. The ablest man reaches the top and detaches the cross. He raises it up high and shows it to the cheering crowd, while the losers begin to throw the citrus fruits, doughnuts, and even branches at the people who are gathering around with outstretched hands.

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The winner descends and is carried in triumph on the people’ s shoulders. The tree is stripped of its blessed foliage and all that remains is the bare structure to mark the end of this first phase of the festival. The people say about it: u pagghiaru s’ avi a spasciari (lit. the pagghiaru must be destroyed). The need to distribute to everyone the beneficial powers of the leaves – which will be kept at home and replaced the following year – and the food undergirds this ritual moment. It seems evident that the use of evergreen branches, bread, and fruit points toward the symbolism of the tree of life and is aimed at achieving a period of abundance and prosperity for nature and the community that lives on its yield. Interpretative proposals. Repeating what was discussed in the first chapter, namely that the analysis of a rite cannot be complete without an examination of its socio-economic context and the ceremonial calendar of which it forms a part, we observe here many aspects of ceremonies marking the seasonal change: the presence of evergreen plants, the exhibition of virility by younger members of the community, the display of nutritional abundance through the gathering and distribution of food. And the food is not coincidental: beyond the obvious aesthetic element, the circular bread, the basic food of a peasant’ s table, and the solar orange are powerful symbols. As Silvana Miceli noted already in 1972, »Ogni materiale usato, ogni parola, ogni atto, e il modo della loro organizzazione, nel rito significano. Le maglie della struttura rituale non lasciano posto all’ arbitrio o alla casualità. Non c’ è niente che ›accade‹ nel rito, tutto è esemplarmente«199. But we shall limit ourselves here to examining the ritual in Cerami. Like all the collective ritual activities that mark seasonal change, it has a clear initiatory character. It signals the passage from adolescence to adulthood through a test of courage and strength, and shows that the youngsters are ready and able to take on the dangers necessary for their own and their communities’ sustenance. Each contestant is a hero who takes on the struggle of defending his community against visible and invisible enemies and of bringing it abundance, and thus re-establishing the natural and social cosmos. His Promethean ascent and the conquest of the circu are not an individual endeavor, nor do they guarantee him exclusive prizes and recognition, as happens with the Pagghiaru in Bordonaro and the games involving the greased pole and the ’ ntinna a mari (lit. pole on the sea). Rather, they require collaboration with companions, and take places symbolically and materially for the benefit of the whole community: everyone will end up having their sacred cuddura, the bright orange, and the evergreen laurel. And when finally someone succeeds in bringing the circu down to the ground, it is attacked by the crowd who enjoy the bread and fruit, some of which, along with laurel branches, are given to others. The young men prove their strength and measure themselves against each other in a challenge that attests to their maturity and whose reward is food for the 199

1972, 141.

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whole community. In doing so, they affirm both individually and collectively, and both to their own society (especially the women) and to the outside world (real and symbolic enemies), the fact of their own power. This power stimulates fertility and regenerates the natural and social cosmos. More generally, in all conflicts between the faithful of different saints, between the right and left or front and rear bearers of a simulacrum, and between contestants for a prize, there is – in addition to the vitalistic-orgiastic-initiatory aspect – a theatricalization of the conflict between antagonistic forces, a clash between life and death, chaos and cosmos. This clash also highlights the continuance of the cycle of time. This is particularly the case when they are performed on the occasion of ceremonies marking the seasonal change200: Choreographic rhythms have their model outside of the profane life of man […]. Struggles, conflicts, and wars for the most part have a ritual cause and function. They are a stimulating opposition between the two halves of a clan, or a struggle between the representatives of two divinities (for example, in Egypt, the combat between two groups representing Osiris and Set); but this always commemorates an episode of the divine and cosmic drama. War or the duel can in no case be explained through rationalistic motives201.

The winter festivals for Saints Anthony, Sebastian, and Blaise can therefore, due to their ritual symbolism, be viewed as ceremonies of an agricultural nature. Nonetheless, although we recognize their background, as well as the economic relevance of rural activity for the Nebrodi region, it would be simplistic to exhaust one’ s interpretation of the rituals from this point of view. The symbols of bread, orange, laurel, and contest seem to conceal a more complex reality: they lie, all while manifesting themselves as having survived from the remote past, as if they were mechanically and unconsciously acted out by a community unable to find any new or more effective language to represent its present condition and its aspirations. While Mircea Eliade noted that »History cannot substantially modify the structure of an archaic symbolism«202, an old inhabitant of a remote Alpine village once explained to a young researcher203 that »memory serves to live«, that festive rites accompany and sustain the symbolic and material circulation of culture by marking its presence, making it visible and palpable, giving it a form and temporarily delimiting its boundaries204. Since they reaffirm and regenerate community culture, festive rites are therefore seen as irreplaceable mechanisms for transmitting a memory that is necessary for recognizing oneself and for finding one’ s 200 201 202 203 204

Gaster 1950, 21 ff. Cf. Usener 1913, 422 ff. Eliade 1959a, 28–29. Cf. Hocart 1935, 188 ff. and 319 ff.; Brelich 2009, 45–158. 1959b, 137. My father Antonino related to me this episode from his personal experience. Navarini 2003, 16.

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meaning in the world. More broadly, they offer meaning and arrange the »ultimate reality of things«205 into a coherent system. So the ritual symbols of the festivals of Saints Anthony, Sebastian, and Blaise do, not lie. Rather, they repeat some otherwise ›unspeakable‹ truths: the beginning and end of individual and social life derive from the earth, which is sacred. The community lives for its Saints and recognizes itself in them; the rest is only transient contingency. At the same time, the symbols, as cultural devices with – potentially – many functions, the importance of which varies according to socio-economic context (as emphasized by Bogatyrev), reproduce and reaffirm a sense of cultural belonging, a precise identity, and today more than ever. Contests. One aspect of the ritual that merits further exploration here is the agonal one, the competition in strength and skill between those who attack the circu and those who should seek to prevent them. They should, because however long the contest may go on, it can and must have only one outcome. It is a ritual and as such reproduces and harnesses destiny, repeatedly imposing upon it a precise direction. It is, at the very same time, a reassertion of the past and an anticipation of the future206. For a ritual to be a ritual, it must know only one way in which it can be performed, it must have an unavoidable principle of necessity. In other words – as Silvana Miceli reminds us again – the ritual has the ability to impose, on the contingent unpredictability of events, the dimension of certainty, necessity and absolute values207. Regarding the ritual contests, Eliade has written: The struggle itself is a ritual for stimulating the forces of birth and of plant life. The contests and fights which take place in so many places in the spring or at harvest time undoubtedly spring from the primitive notion that blows, contests, rough games between the sexes and so on, all stir up and increase the energies of the whole universe208. 

Indeed, all public games had a propitiatory content from their very beginnings, aimed at affirming the values of movement and strength as an expression of life. Ferguson among others recalls that ancient agones must be interpreted as representations of the »struggle between death and life, chaos and order, evil and good, darkness and light, winter and summer, night and day, and all the other dichotomies with which human beings are faced«.209

205 206 207 208 209

Eliade 1959a, 3. Cf. Miceli 1972, 147. 1972, 153. 1958, 320. 1989, 58. Cf. Rose 1925; Toschi 1976, 438 ff.

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Of particular interest in this context are some ancient Spartan ceremonies with a pedagogical/initiatory function, especially the one celebrated at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia.210 Here, according to Pausanias’ report,211 the ephebes underwent a public flogging until they wettened the altar of the goddess with their blood.212 Calame points out that from an ethnological point of view this ritual can be seen as a complete example of an initiation rite, et plus précisément un rite d’ initiation tribale. En tant que tel, il comporte la structure à trois phases caractéristique de tous les rites de passage. Entre la séparation de l’ ordre ancien (enfance) et la réintégration à l’ ordre nouveau (âge adulte), il représente, à côté d’ autres connotations, le stade de la mort, de la ségrégation, de l’›immersion dans le chaos‹213.

It may be pointed out, however, that the rite, which in the second century AD was reduced to a simpler collective flogging of young men, who thus had to demonstrate their ability to endure pain,214 had previously been conceived as a real ritual struggle going beyond a mere rite of passage: the initiates had to attack the altar, which was defended by the already initiated – in any case by older people – who tried to repel the assailants with lashes; the initiates had to try to seize the cheeses deposited near the altar: »καὶ ὡς [Lycurgus] πλείστους δὴ ἁρπάσαι τυροὺς παρ᾽ Ὀρθίας καλὸν θείς215, μαστιγοῦν τούτους ἄλλοις ἐπέταξε, τοῦτοδηλῶσαι 210

211 212

213 214

215

Cf. Farnell 1896, 453; Nilsson 1906, 190 ff.; Rose 1929; Jeanmaire 1975, 397 f.; Calame 1977, I 276–297; Frontisi-Ducroux 1984; Lebessi 1991, 99–103; Bonnechere 1993; Kennel 1995, 115 ff.; Lévy 2003, 101 and 311 ff.; Burkert 2010, 475 f.; Brelich 2013, 150 ff. III, 16, 10–11. Cf. Cicero, Tusc., XIV, 34; Lucian, Anac., 38. The aition of the rite, as reported by Pausania, tells of the need to redden the altar with human blood annually, thereby raising »une énigmatique rumeur de sacrifices humains« (Bonnechere 1993, 11). The suppression of this practice and the introduction of the flogging with the spilling of blood are attributed to Lycurgus (Pausanias III, 16, 10. Cf. Philostratus, Vit. Apol., VI, 20). Calame 1977, I 279. »Les plus nobles et les plus beaux se faisaient un honneur de briller particulièrement lors de l’ épreuve annuelle, et tous forçaient l’ admiration tant des familles que des curieux attirés par le spectacle. Le vainqueur de ce rituel-concours gagnait le titre de βωμονείκης, jouissait d’ une estime grandie et parfois bénéficiait d’ une statue: son exploit, il est vrai, comportait d’ importants risques, car la perte de sang pouvait atteindre des proportions critiques et le décès d’ un des concurrents, battus nus sans répit, advenait de temps à autre encore que jamais il n’ ait été souhaité« (Bonnechere 1993, 12). In Xenophon, Lycurgus starves the young men and thereby pushes them toward theft, in order to prepare them for war, both through privation and through the necessity of resorting to cunning and group coordination: »καὶ ὡς μὲν οὐκ ἀπορῶν ὅ τι δοίη ἐφῆκεν αὐτοῖς γεμηχανᾶσθαι τὴν τροφήν, οὐδένα οἶμαι τοῦτο ἀγνοεῖν: δῆλον δ᾽ ὅτι τὸν μέλλοντα κλωπεύειν καὶ νυκτὸς ἀγρυπνεῖνδεῖ καὶ μεθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἀπατᾶν καὶ ἐνεδρεύειν,

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καὶ ἐν τούτῳ βουλόμενος ὅτι ἔστιν ὀλίγον χρόνονἀλγήσαντα πολὺν χρόνον εὐδοκιμοῦντα εὐφραίνεσθαι«216. In this sense, the rite in its most ancient form –

216

καὶκατασκόπους δὲ ἑτοιμάζειν τὸν μέλλοντά τι λήψεσθαι. ταῦτα οὖν Δὴ πάντα Δῆλον ὅτι μηχανικωτέρους τῶπιτηδείων βουλόμενος τοὺς παῖδας ποιεῖν« (Const. Lac., 2, 7. Cf. Plato, Leg, 633b-c.). Also Plutarch (Lyc., 19, 2) refers to the rite of Artemis Orthia right after having illustrated the educational importance that Spartan legislation ascribed to theft carried out by young people (cf. Bonnechere 1993, 16–17). Segarra Crespo writes: »Se trataba, ciertamente, de un robo ritualizado en cuanto que se producía en el contexto de un culto divino y, por tanto, en neta contraposición con otras ocasiones en las que hacía también de ›ladrón de comida‹, caso tanto del hurto alimentario al que el joven era inducido por su propio jefe de ›rebaño‹ – y, por tanto, institucionalizado – en el contexto de los banquetes comunitarios (previéndose, análogamente a la ocasión ritualizada, el castigo físico de quien era sorprendido in fragranti precisamente por demostrar tal torpeza), como el del robo alimentario que definía el régimen de vida de quien se sometía a esa especial prueba iniciática constituída por la krypteia« (2004, 123). In Briquel’ s opinion, we have in the rite of Artemis Orthia what Vernant (1987) found to be one of the recurring features of Greek pedagogy and initiation: the principle of inversion, according to which initiates must deliberately assume behaviors contrary to the social norm that they will be obliged to adopt upon completion of the process. »Si l’ on fait intervenir les aspects religieux des rites de passage, on se trouve certes surtout en présence de pratiques agonistiques qui ne peuvent être interprétées, purement et simplement, comme un renversement des fêtes normales de la cité. Mais certains faits paraissent davantage relever du même principe d’ inversion. C’ est le cas des rites célèbres qui se déroulaient à Sparte devant autel Artémis Orthia. Il est vrai que l’ on a tendu à reconnaître avant tout une épreuve d’ endurance des jeunes gens, bien dans la ligne d’ interprétation exclusivement militariste des mœurs spartiates. Mais H. Jeanmaire a eu raison de souligner l’ essentiel, tel qu’ il ressort des témoignages les plus anciens: fondamentalement ils consistent en un combat rituel où des jeunes gens tentent de dérober des fromages déposés sur autel malgré les coups des défenseurs. Or cette harpagé se déroule d’ une manière antithétique à ce qui est une cérémonie cultuelle normale. Ce qui est sur autel, normalement offert aux dieux, est ici dérobé, les éphèbes (ou du moins la moitié d’ entre eux) ne viennent pas offrir à la déesse, mais au contraire enlever ce qui lui été donné. On retrouve donc ici, dans le domaine des rites religieux, l’ aspect de prédation dont nous avons vu l’ importance sur le plan économique. L’ éphèbe s’ empare par la violence de ce qui est offert à la divinité: on a un antisacrifice« (Briquel 1982, 459. Cf. Frontisi-Ducroux 1984; Segarra Crespo 2004, 126 f.). Xenophon, Const. Lac., 2, 9. Cf. Plutarch, Lyc., 18, 2. The historical continuance of this ritual seems to be confirmed by an aition in Plutarch (Arist., XVII, 10), involving an assault on the sanctuary by a band of Lydians, which the Spartans repulsed. Cf. Brelich 2013, 152 and notes 60 and 61. Such ›historical‹ narratives had to account for behaviors whose original purpose was no longer clear. Rodríguez Adrados observes: »Ceremonias de origen oscuro se interpretan con arreglo a mitos que se inventan: la expulsión del fármaco o el ataque a una cabaña en el Stepterion délfico, o tantos ritos más se entienden así como reproducción o recuerdo de algo que tuvo lugar antiguamente. Se trata ya, ciertamente, de imitaciones, reproducciones, conmemoraciones, según el pensamiento ilustrado de los griegos. Pero originalmente se trata de volver a realizar la misma acción.

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seen in the symbols from the agricultural-pastoral phase – seems to have had a propitiatory along with an initiatory function. One should also keep in mind that the use of the whip in initiatory rites is not at all exclusive to Sparta217, and that a relationship between scourging and rituals promoting vegetation and fecundity is widely documented: La mort symbolique et le retour à la vie de chaque individu jeune, qui sous-entend sa réinsertion dans la société, correspondait, dans la communauté des mortels, à la renaissance périodique, à l’ ἄνοδος des divinités de la végétation. La flagellation rituelle était le moyen d’ accomplir ce retour, aussi bien dans la cérémonie terrestre que dans le mythe218.

Among the ritual games219 that take the form of an initiatory contest, we may also count the ›game of Dolonia‹. It was performed every eight years in Delphi on the occasion of the Apollonian festival of the Stepterion220. This consisted of the youths’ nocturnal assault on a specially built hut near the sacred altar, and of their overturning a table within it221. As in other cases, a markedly violent contest seems to take place between two groups of initiates, or between initiated and initiates222, with the latter seeking to display their skills within a ritual frame-

217

218 219

220 221 222

Y, en definitiva, de hacer renacer un tiempo anterior, un tiempo en que hombres, dioses, y animales tienen comercio entre sí, están en inmediata presencia y se disponen a poner en marcha el tiempo cíclico« (1976, 23). Cf. Lebessi 1991. Various literary testimonies, inscriptions, and pottery finds suggest the existence of flogging and/or self-flagellation in other Greek communities. From the sanctuary of the Shrines of Hagia Triada, for example, we have »un gruppo di personaggi i cui attributi o il cui atteggiamento richiamano le iniziazioni giovanili, con interessanti analogie nel santuario di Kato Symi. Almeno 3 sono i mastigophoroi (portatori di frusta), ruolo ben noto nell’ ambito dei riti di iniziazione, soprattutto nella dorica Sparta […]. A Creta la fustigazione non è direttamente attestata, ma il tipo di educazione non differisce affatto da quella spartana: i bambini sono sottomessi all’ autorità di un paidonomos e, una volta cresciuti, i ragazzi sono organizzati in agelai, ciascuna sotto l’ autorità di un adulto che ha il potere di punire colui che disobbedisce« (Lefèvre-Novaro 2009, 12–13). Ibid., 120. Lévi-Strauss writes: »Tout jeu se définit par l’ ensemble de ses règles, qui rendent possible un nombre pratiquement illimité de parties; mais le rite, qui se ›joue‹ aussi, ressemble plutôt à une partie privilégiée, retenue entre tous les possibles parce qu’ elle seule résulte dans un certain type d’ équilibre entre les deux camps« (1962, 44). Plutarch, Quaest. Grec., 12 [293C]; De def. orac., 15 [241C]. Cf. Strabo IX, 3, 12. Farnell 1907, 293 ff.; Rose 1929, 405; Harrison 1962, 424 ff.; Fontenrose 1959, 453 ff.; Jeanmaire 1975, 515 ff. One must remember that the initiatory interpretation of the Dolonia rite is only hypothetical. Farnell recognizes that »certain difficulties arise when we consider the details of the record and the whole significance of the Stepteria«, »It is obviously in the main

IV The Cerami Circu

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work223 that evokes a cosmogonic background. But regardless of any consideration of the rituals’ prevailing function and connection to social transformation, we may conclude, for the moment, that the entire upbringing of young Spartans, from infancy to adolescence, was meant to entirely subject the child to civic and religious norms: the initiates thus had to be able to »corrispondere alla ‘norma’ che la società imponeva a ogni suo membro«224. Through these difficult tests, which had both explicit and implicit »elementi didattici e pedagogici«225, the young man had to demonstrate an ability to become a complete citizen, »la volonté tendue et tenace de sortir d’ un état d’ humilité et de bassesse provisoires, d’ inverser son statut, de trouver sa revanche en passant du côté de ceux qui incarnent tous les pouvoirs et tous les honneurs«226. The παιδεία vise à faire du jeune un adulte, ce qui implique une transformation, un véritable changement d’ état, l’ accès à une condition d’ existence nouvelle […]. Parce qu’ elle constitue une véritable intronisation du jeune, une sorte d’ initiation progressive à la vie publique, elle revêt la forme d’ un système organisé d’ epreuves

223

224 225 226

an expiatory ritual; and we may conclude that it was celebrated in the early summer, because such piacular rites are commonly performed before the harvest, and the laurels which are brought back are intended to be used for the summer Pythia« (1907, 293– 294). Fontenrose recalls that »as several scholars have seen, the Septerion festival was a sequence of cleansing and expiatory rites. Certainly the eight-year interval indicates a periodic purging and renewal of the community, once represented by its king; for Delphi was once a monarchy« (1959, 456). But in favor of the initiatory interpretation is the fact that it was in some way connected to the following Daphnephoria, a procession of youngsters who went from Delphi to Tempe to collect sacred laurels. The contest, like other public ritual performances, was thus »an occasion on which appropriate individuals enact events, in accordance with certain recognized conventions, in the sight and hearing of a larger social group, and in some sense for their benefit« (Taplin 1999, 33). On the formal and functional relationships between rite, game, and contest, see Huizinga, who notes: »The function of play in the higher forms which concern us here can largely be derived from the two basic aspects under which we meet it: as a contest for something or a representation of something. These two functions can unite in such a way that the game ›represents‹ a contest, or else becomes a contest for the best representation of something« (1955, 13). In all Germanic languages and in many others besides, play-terms are regularly applied to armed strife as well. Anglo-Saxon poetry – to limit ourselves to but one example - is full of such terms and phrases. Armed strife, or battle, is called heado-lac or beadu-lac, literally ›battle-play‹; or asc-plega, ›spear-play‹. In these compounds we are dealing without a doubt with poetic metaphors, a fully conscious transfer of the play-concept to the battle-concept. On games, war, and the sacred, see also Benveniste 1947; Caillois 2001, 146 ff. and 157 ff. Brelich 2013, 38. Ibid., 47. Vernant 1987, 293.

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Ignazio E. Buttitta auxquelles le jeune est soumis et qu’ il doit subir du début à la fin pour devenir lui-même, c’ est-à-dire pour acquérir cette identité sociale qu’ il ne possédait pas auparavant227.

Based on what has been observed, we may establish that jousts and tournaments, ancient and medieval, cannot in their original state be considered as a »valvola di sfogo a una gioventù turbolenta […] vogliosa di mettere in mostra la propria grandezza« or simply a statement of military skill, a simple noble pastime as a substitute for war, and least of all a competition just for the sake of winning some prize228. We agree with Jünger that »Entstehungsgründe des Spiels können keine Zwecke sein, die an das Spiel geknüpft werden. Ein Spiel kann zur Folge haben, daß Geist und Körper sich kräftigen. Kein Spiel aber entsteht als Mittel einer solchen Kräftigung. Diese steht vielmehr im Dienst des Spiels«229. It is therefore no coincidence that during certain festivals, especially of a carnival type, there were tests of skill, dexterity, and manliness. Van Gennep writes that at carnivals »activités qui mettent en valeur la force, l’ adresse, l’ ingégniosité sous tout ses formes«230 are traditionally organized, including contests between neighboring municipalities, or between married couples and single people. Already in 1199, in Orvieto, Pietro Parenzo tried, in vain, to prohibit warlike games during Carnival. In 1416 in Florence, as Ghisi recalls, the Brigata del Fiore organized a costume ball by the Mercato Nuovo: »Danzarono quelli della Brigata in sul detto mercato con molte donne e fanciulle e dopo il ballo i detti giovani armeggiarono«231. Tournaments, jousting, and sundry carnivalesque fights, carried out in conjunction with calendar festivals, are documented for the Middle Ages and modernity throughout Europe232. We recall what Olaus Magnus wrote in the 16th century: Suecis autem Meridionalibus, & Gothis, [¼] alius ritus est, ut primo die Maii sole per Taurum agente Ritus Aquilonarium hyemis fugandæ, cursum, duplices a magistratibus urbium constituantur robustorum juvenum, & virorum equestres turmæ, seu cohortes, tanquam ad durum aliquem conflictum progressuræ: quarum altera, forte deputato duce dirigitur: qui hyemis titulo, & habitu, Dux hyemalis, variis indutus pellibus, hastisque focalibus armatus, globatas nives, & crustatas glacies spargens, ut frigora prolonget [¼]. Rursumque alterius equestris cohortis præfectus æstatis, Comes Florialis appellatus, Dux æstivalis, virentibus 227 228 229 230 231 232

Ibid., 271. Balestracci 2001, 3–16; Verdon 2004, 169 ff. 1953, 195. 1947, 1088. 1937, 30. Balestracci 2001; Verdon 2004.

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arborum frondibus, foliisque & floribus (difficulter repertis) vestitus, æstivalibus indumentis parum securis, e campo cum Duce hyemali, licet separato loco, & ordine, civitates ingrediuntur, hastisque edito spectaculo publico, quod Aestas victrix233.

Without wishing to reduce the complex phenomenology of ceremonial competitions to a simple ›vitalistic‹ model, we must still suggest an interpretation of the Cerami ceremony along these lines, as well as, for example, of the rigattiati (the procession of the floats carrying the saints) in Calamonaci and Villafranca Sicula, the Mastro di Campo (carnival pantomime) in Mezzojuso, the Sartiglia in Oristano and Ardia (equestrian tournaments) in Sedilo and Pozzomaggiore, the Carnival in Ivrea, and many other Palios and jousting events that are a big part of festivals in central and northern Italy. In essence, as a Sicilian anthropologist has argued: Analogamente al significato dello spreco alimentare nei rituali festivi, oppure del pasto funebre che riequilibrava il corpo sociale, indebolito dalla morte di un suo componente, la ostentazione di forza fisica ma anche mentale propria dei giochi, ristabiliva l’ equilibrio del cosmo turbato dalla morte e nello stesso tempo ribadiva la continuità tra vivi e morti che ne era il fondamento234.

233 234

Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, XV, 8. Buttitta 1999, 18.

V. »ἔργον τόδ᾽ ἐϋγραφὲς Ζανὶ ἀνέθεντο« (Anth. Pal. VI 221). Continuità morfologiche e funzionali negli ex voto figurativi Considerazioni preliminari. Alla base di ogni indagine sul simbolismo religioso restano sempre aperte e necessitano di continuo aggiornamento alcune questioni relative: alle dinamiche della formazione, trasmissione e ricezione trans-culturali dei singoli simboli e dei pattern simbolici nel tempo e nello spazio; alle relazioni tra la parte e il tutto (tra elemento e sistema); alle diverse rappresentazioni che le culture si sono date relativamente alla posizione dell’ Uomo nel Mondo nel quadro di un ordine miticamente, quindi sacralmente, fondato; ai linguaggi che l’ uomo ha costruito per intessere un rapporto positivo, percepito come essenziale alla nascita e continuità vita nella sua totalità, con le potenze trascendenti, con gli dèi. Si tratta di questioni, in verità, che hanno occupato per millenni l’ umano ingegno, dalle più arcaiche cosmogonie e cosmologie (si pensi agli straordinari cicli figurativi del Paleolitico superiore troppo spesso interpretati al ribasso, in prospettiva evoluzionistica come meri esempi di magismo mimetico e, in realtà, stratificati palinsensti di rappresentazioni cosmiche sostenute e permeate da una straordinaria sensibilità etica ed estetica235), fino alle più recenti riflessioni della Filosofia della Scienza. Dal nostro punto di vista – fondato su esperienze di ricerca che sempre partono dal ›campo‹, dalla diretta osservazione dei fenomeni e dall’ interazione con coloro che tali fenomeni producono e animano –, lo studio dei simboli e dei sistemi simbolici richiede, da un lato un’ indagine storicocomparativa che aiuta se non altro a comprendere gli aspetti morfologici tanto dei simboli materiali (elementi naturali, oggetti, immagini, ecc.) quanto di quelli immateriali (performance, gesti, parole, musica, ecc.), dall’ altro un’ accorta opera di contestualizzazione socio-culturale. Vale cioè, in generale, quanto Firth scriveva a proposito dei prodotti ›artistici‹: »But all art is  composed in a social setting; it has a cultural content. To understand this content it is necessary to study more than general human values and emotions; they must be studied in specific cultural terms at given periods of time«. 236. Fermandosi, dunque, alle similitudini formali tra immagini simboliche derivate da contesti culturali diversi, ossia estrapolandole dal loro specifico e concreto contesto d’ uso, e sottraendole al rapporto funzionale che esse detengono con tutti gli altri elementi del sistema simbolico cui appartengono (miti, credenze, riti, immaginari, ecc.), si compie un mero esercizio di virtuosismo comparativo che assai poco può dirci sul valore concretamente assunto da queste immagini all’ interno della realtà storico-culturale di appartenenza, lasciando piuttosto spazio, nel caso dell’›oggetto artistico‹, a considerazioni inevitabilmente viziate dai paradigmi 235 236

Cf. Leroi-Gouran 1964; Clottes 2003; Otte 2012. 1961, 162.

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estetici dell’ osservatore, a una sorta di etnocentrismo estetico che tiene in poco conto o non lo tiene affatto delle condizioni originarie di produzione ed uso del manufatto237. Non è certamente possibile ascrivere una valenza meramente estetica alle espressioni figurative delle culture tradizionali. Dietro ogni immagine, anche la più semplice, stanno definite concezioni del tempo e dello spazio, specifiche visioni del mondo e della vita che fanno di ogni figurazione un simbolo238. A partire da queste osservazioni preliminari, nella consapevolezza, cioè, dei limiti di ogni ricerca sulle immagini e sui soggiacenti immaginari simbolici tesa a rintracciare continuità oltre che morfologiche anche funzionali e semantiche, proveremo in questa sede a condurre alcune considerazioni sugli ex voto figurativi. Dipinti votivi. In un passo dell’ Horcynus Orca Stefano D’ Arrigo offre un’ interessante testimonianza di una pratica religiosa, quella del pellegrinaggio votivo, ampiamente diffusa in tutto il mondo cristiano e tra tutte le classi sociali239 e, insieme, della varietà tipologica degli ex voto presenti, come già notava Vasari, »in tutti i luoghi dove sono divozioni e dove concorrono persone a porre voti e, come si dice, miracoli, per avere alcuna grazia ricevuta«240. In mezzo ai pellerinanti, fra i tanti che portavano in mostra gambe e braccia, mani e piedi, dita e nasi, orecchie e lingue, occhi e ginocchi, tutta roba di stoppa e legno e cera e latta e argento e oro, o di pitture della disgrazia sofferta, o di colori della parte graziata, formata di pastareale, qualche volta si vedevano pure di quelli che, miracolati d’ un morbo che gli aveva colpito il sembiante, portavano una faccia finta a qualche palmo davanti alla vera, come una maschera di carnevale di cartapesta colorata a cera con le guance rosate vergini come di vava, ma quanto più possibile, a loro immagine e somiglianza241.

Tra gli ex voto esibiti dai pellegrini diretti al santuario della Madonna nera di Tindari, D’ Arrigo annota le »pitture della disgrazia sofferta« ossia le rappresentazioni figurative dell’ evento drammatico risolto dall’ intervento divino, una tipologia votiva che, al pari di altre, è già ampiamente attestata nel mondo antico2421. 237 238 239 240 241 242

Cf. Griaule 1951, 12–13. Lotman 2009. Cf. Oursel 1963; Gallini 1971; Turner, Turner 1978; Chélini, Branthomme 1982; Rossi 1986; Dupront 1993, 327 sgg.; Reader, Walter 1993; Buttitta 2015–2016; Arlotta 2016. 1938, 1229 s. D’ Arrigo 2015, 74. Cf. Homolle 1892; Rouse 1902; ThesCRA 2004, I 269 sgg.; Karoglou 2010; Prêtre 2013; Hughes 2017. Tra gli ex voto antichi che descrivono il rischio o il dramma risolti dall’ intervento divino possono essere annoverate le pinakes rinvenute presso i santuari di Asclepio di Cos, Epidauro e Corinto che presentano ora il devoto esibire o indicare la parte del corpo guarita dal dio ora lo stesso dio taumaturgo imporre le mani sul malato

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Una delle prime testimonianze dell’ uso di questo tipo di αναθήματα si rinviene in un epigramma di Leonida di Taranto (IV-III sec. a.C.): Χειμερίην διὰ νύκτα χαλαζήεντά τε συρμόν / καὶ νιφετὸν φεύγων καὶ κρυόεντα πάγον, / μουνολέων, καὶ δὴ κεκακωμένος ἁθρόα γυῖα, / ἦλθε φιλοκρήμνων αὖλιν ἐς αἰγινόμων. // Οἱ δ’ οὐκ ἀμφ’ αἰγῶν μεμελημένοι, ἀλλὰ περὶ σφέων / εἵατο σωτῆρα Ζῆν’ ἐπικεκλόμενοι. // Χεῖμα δὲ θὰρ μείνας θὴρ νύκτιος, οὔτε τιν’ ἀνδρῶν / οὔτε βοτῶν βλάψας, οἴχετ’ ἀπαυλόσυνος. // Οἱ δὲ πάθης ἔργον τόδ’ ἐϋγραφὲς ἀκρολοφῖται / Ζανὶ παρ’ εὐπρέμνῳ τῇδ’ ἀνέθεντο δρυΐ243.

Come può osservarsi per la più larga parte degli ex voto figurativi cristiani medievali e moderni, l’ immagine ›in forma di dipinto‹ evocata dai versi leonidei raffigura lo scenario e il momento del ›miracolo‹ mettendo in scena l’ evento rischioso (l’ incidente ovvero il manifestarsi del malanno), il/i beneficato/i (mentre invoca la divinità o la prega di intervenire a suo vantaggio) e, quindi, direttamente o implicitamente, la stessa divina potenza; ciò a differenza degli ex voto plastici (in terracotta, in cera, in metallo ecc.) che perlopiù presentano la parte del corpo guarita, il bene ottenuto ovvero atti cultuali e gesti offertori alla divinità latrice del beneficio. A tal proposito va precisato che all’ interno della classe degli ex voto figurativi che illustrano un miracoloso intervento divino, proponendosi come donitestimonianze per/di grazia ricevuta, possono distinguersi almeno due tipologie. Può trattarsi infatti ora di grazia (di guarigione, di risoluzione di un problema, ecc.) precedentemente richiesta al dio, ora, come nel caso leonideo, di intervento divino immediatamente successivo a un’ improvvisa e non premeditata richiesta di aiuto di fronte a un pericolo: intervento quest’ ultimo tanto più importante da ricordare sia, nello specifico, in memoria della particolare benevolenza del dio verso il devoto e della conseguente riconoscenza di quest’ ultimo, sia, in generale, come attestazione della potentia del dio; una potenza che va, appunto, comunicata e rappresentata nella sua immediata, efficace, risolutiva e salvifica manifestazione offrendo un decisivo contributo all’ affermazione e al consolidarsi nel tempo di uno specifico culto. Come osserva Rodríguez Becerra, d’ altronde, Sin milagros no hay posibilidad de crear devoción; éstos son la expresión del poder de la imagen y a ella acuden todos los necesitados en busca de soluciones, lo que sin duda redunda en curaciones, limosnas, mayor difusión de los favores celestiales, mejores edificios y así sucesivamente244.

243 244

(cf. Mansuelli 1958; Dillon 1997, 74 sgg.; Melfi 1961, 17 sgg. e 286 sgg.; Interdonato 2013). Ant. Pal., VI 221. Rodríguez Becerra 2008, 102.

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Da questo punto di vista l’ ex voto si configura oltre che come »una dichiarazione di obbligazione permanente del miracolato verso il santo o il dio miracolante«245 come autentica »prédication en image«246. Aspetto colto da papa Giovanni Paolo I, allora patriarca di Venezia, che dinanzi alle tavolette votive del santuario mariano di Pietralba di Bolzano ebbe a dire: »Anche quelle piccole tavole dipinte hanno una voce e fanno una predica: predica di popolo a popolo«247. Lo scopo degli ex voto figurativi, se non il loro ›desiderio‹, come nel caso di ogni immagine sacra o profana, è d’ altronde quello di attrarre a sé, di essere contemplati e attraverso la contemplazione, l’ incrocio di sguardi che in ogni modo si genera tra immagine e spettatore248, di essere incorporati nella loro essenza e nel loro messaggio dall’ osservatore249. Gli ex voto, segnatamente quelli figurativi, sono di fatto realizzati per essere perpetuamente esposti tanto allo sguardo della divinità, quanto a quello degli altri devoti, costituendosi al contempo come preghiera visibile e permanente alla divinità salvatrice e come testimonianza perenne di gratitudine250: »the object speaks without ceasing as no mortal can«, restando a testimoniare la devozione del devoto dopo il suo ritorno alla vita quotidiana e anche oltre la sua stessa vita251. Da un lato, dunque, come osserva Jacobs, Tavolette always depict dialogues of devotion. Regardless of whether the votary is portrayed in prayer or captured at a moment of imminent danger, and no matter whether the intercessor is pictured seated on earth or observing from the heights of heaven, pious petitioner and attendant intercessor are always visually present. In each and every one of these pictured dialogues, the voice of the miracolato is audible252.

Dall’ altro, come ricorda Roberta Coglitore, l’ ex voto ha una vita anche dopo lo scioglimento del voto, vive di vita propria anche per gli altri fedeli che pregano nel santuario dove viene collocato e raccolto insieme agli altri dedicati a uno stesso santo o provenienti da una precisa regione. Da oggetto personale e privato diventa pubblico e condiviso, fattore unificante della chiesa orante che annuncia in ogni modo la gloria divina. […] Non si tratta dunque soltanto di un’ immagine di culto, seppure di una rappresentazione del privato in

245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252

Buttitta 1983, 11 ss. Arrouye 1980, 41. Luciani 1979, 84. Arnheim 2007, 71 sgg.; Florenskij 2003, 29. Cf. Mitchell 2017, 114. Bronzini 1993, 6; Freedberg 1989, 213. Robb 1978, 27. 2013, 15.

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Ignazio E. Buttitta ambito spirituale e in un piccolo formato, né soltanto di un’ immagine taumaturgica e neppure di un’ immagine visionaria, perché non c’ è ritratta una scena di contemplazione ma di richiesta e di preghiera, si tratta invece di un’ immagine di testimonianza della grazia253.

La dimensione individuale del voto, della relazione uomo-dio, si tramuta, dunque, nel momento in cui questa si materializza in immagine pittorica da esporre in pubblico, quale »memoria storica sovra personale« destinata a vivere e rivivere sottraendosi al flusso temporale e facendosi simbolo eterno della potenza254. Per altro verso gli ex voto, in quanto oggetti donati al dio e perciò ad esso consacrati, investiti dalla sua potenza anche per il solo fatto di esservi posti accanto, divengono partecipi della maestà e della inviolabilità degli dèi255, sono a tutti gli effetti ›materia sacra‹256. Parole e immagini. Leonida, come dice Cicerone dello stoico Cleante, dipinge il quadro votivo con le parole: »tabulae […] verbis depingere solebat«257. Può dirsi infatti che i versi leonidei si presentino come meta-comunicativi e ekphrastici258: essi costituiscono, a un tempo, narrazione dell’ episodio che darà vita al manufatto votivo e descrizione anteposta nel tempo della scena rappresentata in quest’ ultimo, proponendosi funzionalmente, al di là della stessa volontà dell’ autore, come attestazione di potenza divina e formalmente come traduzione processuale e performativa di una rappresentazione di per sé statica. Ed è forse studiatamente che Leonida scrive »ἔργον τόδ’ εὐγραφές«, che può essere letto sia ›opera ben dipinta‹ sia ›opera ben scritta‹. Come osservato da Prioux, nell’ epigramma »le rapport entre texte et peinture est explicité […]: en l’ absence du tableau qui n’ a peut-être jamais existé, l’ épigramme, qui circule, coupée de son contexte réel ou fictif, dans les livres de poésie, devient le substitut du tableau votif«259. Su un altro piano il rapporto tra parole e immagini trova nell’ ex voto su tavoletta una sua concreta espressione. Sebbene le produzioni visuali possiedano rispetto alla parola orale e allo scritto una loro autonomia concettuale e funzionale, una loro specifica forma di comunicatività, infatti, nell’ ex voto pittorico, per mezzo di una iscrizione, si stabilisce una ancor più forte relazione tra l’ immagine e chi la osserva poiché la comunicazione scritta a corredo, anche quando estremamente sintetica, accresce la possibilità del figurato di interagire con lo spettatore260. Così 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260

2012, 105–106. Settis 2015, XVII. Homolle 1892, 368. Cf. Fabietti 2014. De finibus, 2, 21, 69. Cf. Cometa 2012. 2017, 29. Cf. Männlein-Robert 2007, 41–43 e 123–127. Cf. Bredekamp 2010, 47; Severi 2018, 143 sgg.

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molti ex voto antichi presentano più o meno lunghe iscrizioni ove è indicato il nome del donatore, quello della divinità destinataria e le ragioni della gratitudine del fedele261, non diversamente dagli ex voto pittorici cristiani medievali e moderni che riportano, generalmente insieme alla laconica dicitura ›per grazia ricevuta‹ o similari espressioni, indicazioni relative al dedicatario, all’ intercessore o agli intercessori e informazioni che aiutano a comprendere la situazione in cui si è realizzato il miracolo262. Tra immagine e testo esiste dunque un rapporto di reciproca definizione e significazione: »I testi rinviano alle immagini visive e […] interagiscono con esse«263. Il testo indica il nome di un protagonista, il tempo e il luogo, l’ immagine svolge e sostanzia di senso le sintetiche indicazioni testuali e, quando queste sono più estese, le integra e illustra. Osserva in proposito Bronzini come in questo genere di ex voto, pittura e scrittura non sono separabili, costituiscono due mezzi comunicativi complementari che agiscono in correlazione e sintonia nel meccanismo magicoreligioso, come avviene negli scongiuri (e in misura attenuata nelle preghiere), dove il gesto e la parola concorrono a rinnovare il mito. Il racconto dell’ ex voto si costituisce anch’ esso morfologicamente (pur mancandogli etnologicamente il seme specifico del rito) come un microrganismo mitico. Questo nesso, che rende parlata la pittura e agita la scrittura, è uno dei caratteri distintivi dell’ ex voto popolare264.

La narrazione, scritta o orale, sempre processuale, può dirsi infine, ambisce a cristallizzarsi in immagine fissa e materica, l’ immagine, di per sé statica, a sciogliersi e ad animarsi nella narrazione. In un modo o nell’ altro, scrittura e immagine, immagini e parole, raccontano secondo i loro peculiari codici espressivi, talora interrelati e indisgiungibili: dai pittogrammi ai fotoromanzi, dalle tavolette omeriche ai manga, dagli affreschi medievali agli odierni manifesti pubblicitari, dai retori itineranti ai cantastorie. Tutti questi prodotti culturali, in un modo o nell’ altro, volutamente o meno, sottraggono storie e vite all’ oblio, sovvertono i flussi temporali, presentificano il passato e lo eternano. Tabellae pictae. Come già nella Grecia antica ex voto figurativi, segnatamente dipinti, sono parte dei corredi cultuali dei santuari latini. Noto quello donato da Mario – che descriveva l’ evento miracoloso (πίναξ τῶν πράξεων ᾽εκείνων) – intorno all’88 a.C. presso il santuario della ninfa Marica a Minturno quale ringra-

261 262 263 264

Homolle 1892, 378. Cf. Borello 1981, 101. Bolzoni 2002, XVII. 1993, 10–11, Cf. Severi 2004.

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ziamento alla dea per avere consentito la sua fuga verso il mare attraversando il suo bosco sacro normalmente interdetto265. Cicerone accenna a tal genere di manufatti votivi nel De natura deorum: At Diagoras cum Samothracam venisset, Atheus ille qui dicitur, atque ei quidam amicus: ›tu, qui deos putas humana neglegere, nonne animadvertis ex tot tabulis pictis, quam multi votis vim tempestatis effugerint in portumque salvi pervenerint?‹266.

In effetti le tabellae pictae, come già numerose pinakes greche, sono particolarmente riferibili a culti di divinità protettrici dai rischi dell’ andar per mare267. Per i marinai, osserva De Cazanove, »l’ offrande d’ action de grâce la plus courante paraît avoir consisté en tableaux votifs« che, con ogni probabilità, rappresentavano »scènes de tempêtes et de naufrages […], type de représentations, si familier pour nous qui avons en mémoire les ex-voto marins modernes des sanctuaires littoraux atlantiques ou méditerranéens«268. Così Orazio, con probabile riferimento a Nettuno, recita di una tavola votiva raffigurante l’ offerta delle vesti indossate al momento del naufragio: »[…]. me tabula sacer / votiva paries indicat uvida / suspendisse potenti / vestimenta maris deo«269, confermando una pratica pure attestata da Virgilio: forte sacer Fauno foliis oleaster amaris / hic steterat, nautis olim venerabile lignum, / servati ex undis ubi figere dona solebant / Laurenti divo et votas suspendere vestis; / sed stirpem Teucri nullo discrimine sacrum / sustulerant, puro utpossent concurrere campo270.

Così Tibullo in riferimento alla dea Iside, dea non a caso ricordata con il titolo di pelaghìa, il cui culto, a partire dall’ epoca tolemaica, si era affermato in tutta la marineria del Mediterraneo occidentale e alla quale era dedicata la festa del navigium Isidis, i primi di marzo, in apertura della stagione delle navigazioni271. Quid tua nunc Isis mihi, Delia, quid mihi prosunt / Illa tua totiens aera repulsa manu, / Quidve, pie dum sacra colis, pureque lavari / Te – memini – et puro secubuisse toro? / Nunc, dea, nunc succurre mihi – nam posse mederi / Picta docet templis multa tabella tuis –, / Ut mea votivas persolvens Delia voces / Ante sacras 265 266 267 268 269 270 271

Plutarco, Mar., 37–40, 1. III, 89. Cf. Fenet 2019, 398 sgg. 1993, 124. Odi, I, 5. Eneid., XII, 766–771. Cf. Giglio Cerniglia 2017.

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lino tecta fores sedeat / Bisque die resoluta comas tibi dicere laudes / Insignis turba debeat in Pharia272

A ex voto figurativi per Iside allude anche Giovenale: Nam praeter pelagi casus et fulminis ictus evasit: densae caelum abscondere tenebrae nube una subitusque antemnas inpulit ignis, cum se quisque illo percussum crederet et mox attonitus nullum conferri posse putaret naufragium velis ardentibus, omnia fiunt talia, tam graviter, si quando poetica surgit tempestas, genus ecce aliud discriminis audi et miserere iterum, quamquam sint cetera sortis eiusdem pars dira quidem, sed cognita multis et quam votiva testantur fana tabella plurima; pictores quis nescit ab Iside pasci? 273.

Continuità. Dall’ antichità greca e romana provengono dunque numerose seppur frammentarie testimonianze sull’ uso di tipologie di ex voto che, tanto a livello morfologico che funzionale, sono ampiamente documentate nel folklore moderno e contemporaneo. Gli stessi schemi figurativi finiscono con il ripetersi nel tempo secondo una linea di concrete imitazioni ovvero nel rinnovarsi di una tenace memoria figurativa. Gli ex voto si rivelano così essere, come diversi altri oggetti e prassi cultuali, »componenti di lunga durata […] che attraversano […] esperienze diverse e che vengono via via reinterpretati e adattati alle nuove esigenze«274. Di tale indiscutibile evidenza, che si inquadra nel più generale problema delle continuità delle prassi e delle forme votive tra paganesimo e cristianesimo275, offre una vivida testimonianza una pagina di Teodoreto di Cirro: Οἱ δὲ τῶν καλλινίκων μαρτύρων σηκοὶ λαμπροὶ καὶ περίβλεπτοι καὶ μεγέθει διαπρεπεῖς καὶ παντοδαπῶς πεποικιλμένοι καὶ κάλλους ἀφιέντες μαρμαρυγάς. […] Καὶ οἱ μὲν ὑγιαίνοντες αἰτοῦσι τῆς ὑγείας τὴν φυλακήν, οἱ δέ τινι νόσῳ παλαίοντες τὴν τῶν παθημάτων ἀπαλλαγήν· αἰτοῦσι δὲ καὶ ἄγονοι παῖδας, καὶ στέριφαι παρακαλοῦσι γενέσθαι μητέρες, καὶ οἱ τῆσδε τῆς δωρεᾶς ἀπολαύσαντες ἀξιοῦσιν ἄρτια σφίσι φυλαχθῆ ναι τὰ δῶρα· καὶ οἱ μὲν εἴς τινα ἀποδημίαν στελλόμενοι λιπα ροῦσι τούτους ξυνοδοιπόρους γενέσθαι καὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἡγεμόνας· οἱ δὲ τῆς ἐπανόδου τετυχηκότες τὴν τῆς χάριτος ὁμολογίαν προσ φέρουσιν, οὐχ ὡς θεοῖς αὐτοῖς προσιόντες, ἀλλ’ ὡς θείους ἀνθρώπους ἀντιβολοῦντες καὶ γενέσθαι πρεσβευτὰς ὑπὲρ σφῶν παρακαλοῦντες. Ὅτι δὲ τυγχάνουσιν ὧνπερ αἰτοῦσιν οἱ πιστῶς ἐπαγγέλλοντες, ἀναφανδὸν μαρτυρεῖ τὰ τούτων ἀναθήματα τὴν ἰατρείαν δηλοῦντα. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ὀφθαλμῶν, οἱ δὲ ποδῶν, ἄλλοι δὲ χειρῶν προσφέρουσιν ἐκτυπώματα· καὶ οἱ μὲν ἐκ χρυσοῦ, οἱ δὲ ἐξ ὕλης πεποιημένα. ∆έχεται γὰρ ὁ 272 273 274 275

Elegie, I. 3. Satire, 4, XII, 27–28. Bolzoni 2002, XXV. Cf. Delumeau 1992, 188 sgg.

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Ignazio E. Buttitta τούτων δεσπότης καὶ τὰ σμικρά τε καὶ εὔωνα, τῇ τοῦ προσφέροντος δυνάμει τὸ δῶρον μετρῶν. ∆ηλοῖ δὲ ταῦτα προκείμενα τῶν παθημάτων τὴν λύσιν, ἧς ἀνετέθη μνημεῖα παρὰ τῶν ἀρτίων γεγενημένων276.

L’ uso ›pagano‹ di offrire ex voto agli dèi prosegue, dunque, seguendo forme, schemi figurativi e prassi rituali non dissimili, nel mondo cristiano, affermandosi solidamente e contribuendo a validare la tesi, già sostenuta da Lutero contro le ›pietà popolare‹ cattolica, dei santi ›successori degli dèi‹277. Oltre mille anni dopo Teodoreto così scrive lo storico umanista Polidoro Virgilio sostenuto da assoluta certezza circa i rapporti tra i costumi ›antichi‹ e quelli a lui contemporanei: […] Essendo adunque venuti a noi molti ordini degli Hebrei et da Romani o da altri Gentili anche molti, è convenevole che narriamo quelli che da loro habbiamo pigliati, né si debbono tacere quelli che, da loro tolti, a miglior uso habbiamo mutati. Habbiamo adunque molte cerimonie alle loro quasi simile, come nei dì festi et nelle nozze ornate le Chiese et le case con tapeti, lauro, hedera et altre liete frondi et coronare le porte spargendole de fiori. Questo gli adoratori degli idoli prima osservavano. […]. Parimente l’ offerire l’ imagini da i medesimi è pigliato, […]. Queste cose quasi i nostri voti et costumi predicevano, percioché noi parimente offeriamo a’ templi imagini di cera, et quantunque volte alcuna parte del corpo è offesa, come mano, piede o poppa, immantinente a Dio et a’ suoi Santi facciamo voti, ai quali, ricevuta la sanità, quella mano, quel piede o quella poppa di cera offeriamo. Il qual costume in tanto è cresciuto che tali imagini si facciano anche de gli animali, percioché così per il bue, per il cavallo, per la pecora le offeriamo a’ templi, ne la qual cosa forse alcuno potrebbe dire, che no la reli276

277

VIII, 62–65. »Invece i santuari dei martiri che si illustrarono con gloriose vittorie sono magnifici, attirano gli sguardi di tutti, spiccano per la loro grandezza, sono ornati con ogni varietà di colori ed emettono barbagli di bellezza. […] Coloro che godono di una buona salute chiedono che essa venga loro conservata; quelli invece che lottano con qualche malattia, domandano la liberazione dalle loro sofferenze; coloro che non hanno figli li chiedono; le donne sterili li chiamano in aiuto per diventare madri e quelli che hanno usufruito di questo dono si sentono autorizzati a chiedere che venga loro conservato al completo. Quelli che partono per un viaggio lontano scongiurano i martiri di farsi loro compagni di strada e guide della via; quelli poi che hanno ottenuto il ritorno riconoscono loro di averne ottenuto la grazia. […] Che ottengano ciò che chiedono lo testimoniano pubblicamente le loro offerte votive, che mostrano la guarigione; alcuni apportano figure di occhi, altri di piedi, altri di mani; alcuni le portano foggiate in oro, altri in legno. Il loro Signore accoglie infatti anche le cose piccole e a buon mercato; misura il dono secondo la capacità di colui che lo offre. Questi oggetti esposti mostrano la liberazione dalle malattie e sono stati appesi in voto come suo ricordo da parte di coloro che erano ritornati in perfette condizioni« (trad. F. Trisoglio 2011, 247–248). Cf. Trede 1889–1891; Saintyves 1907; Delehaye 1912 e 1927; Woodburn Hyde 1923; Laing 1931; Niola 2007.

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gione anzi superstitione de gli antichi seguitiamo, quando che, secondo Catone nell’ Agricoltura, così usavano i Romani per il bue fare il voto, et narra egli di tal cosa il modo veramente degno da esser beffato. […]; ma che appendemo ne’ templi i miracoli dipinti, per darne a’ descendenti memoria, da’ Greci è pigliato, i quali, secondo Strabone nell’ VIII costumavano d’ appendere le tavole nel tempio di quel Dio che gli haveva sanati scrivendogli l’ infermità et come n’ erano sanati, et questo specialmente a Esculapio facevano in Epidauro […]278.

Che nel XVI secolo l’ uso degli ex voto fosse ampiamente diffuso ne dà – con tutt’ altro spirito – ulteriore testimonianza, nel 1560, il prete udinese Narciso Pramper nel suo Specchio de verità: È egli iddolatria adorar l’ imagini ingenochiarsi inanzi a quelle, applicargli le candele, mettervi le lampade, invocarle, far voti a quelle, appendergli torchie, ceri, panni, rasso, veste, occhi, mani, capi, gambe hor di cera, hor di argento, appenderli imagini d’ huomini, di donne, de fanciulli, di buovi et di cavalli! È egli iddolatria et insieme, debbo dire, espressa pazzia, haver maggior devotione ad un’ imagine o statua che ad un’ altra del medesimo santo o santa. Verbi gratia, più a quella di Loretto che a quella del Sasso de Cargna, et pensar che l’ una facci più miracoli che l’ altra279.

Quella cinquecentesca è invero un’ epoca pervasa dalle immagini. Gli spazi pubblici traboccano di immagini pittoriche e plastiche che fanno riferimento alla storia sacra: Ben più della parola, infatti la vista poteva imprimere nell’ animo le storie degli antichi patriarchi e profeti di Israele, dell’ infanzia, predicazione e passione di Cristo, del giudizio universale, dei tormenti dei martiri cristiani, dei miracoli dei santi taumaturghi, e soprattutto della Madonna nelle sue molteplici rappresentazioni. […] facciate di chiese, sedi di confraternite, formelle su campanili, portali di cattedrali e battisteri, affreschi, teleri, mosaici, altari, cappelle gentilizie, cori e pavimenti intarsiati, pergami, stampe, ex voto riversavano sui fedeli immagini che narravano una storia sacra di cui tutti erano parte, tra speranze di salvezza e timori di dannazione280.

Non meno presenti sono le immagini sacre nelle abitazioni private, »dalle più fastose alle più disadorne, le cui pareti ospitavano tele e tavolette dipinte, stampe, piccoli trittici, pitture devote«281. È d’ altronde a livello popolare che la venerazione 278 279 280 281

1550, 140–142. Cit. in De Biasio 1986, 181. Firpo, Biferali 2016, 5 s. Ibidem, 7. Cf. Niccoli 2011, 22 sgg.

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per le immagini »si intrecciava più strettamente con la fede nelle apparizioni e nei miracoli, il culto delle reliquie, i ceri accesi, i voti, i pellegrinaggi, le innumerevoli pratiche religiose che si innestavano su bisogni primari di protezione e rassicurazione«282. Sarebbe dunque l’ inesauribile bisogno di protezione e rassicurazione ad avere determinato certe apparenti continuità tra paganitas e cristianitas. Non diretta filiazione, piuttosto il ripresentarsi di analoghe situazioni e istanze esistenziali dinanzi alle quali si recuperavano, talora ripetendo costantemente nel tempo talora ricorrendo alla memoria culturale283, oggetti e prassi di comprovata efficacia. Possiamo leggere in tal senso le seguenti considerazioni di Firth sulla cosiddetta ›arte primitiva‹: »Each art form, visible in wood or stone, or made known in song or other medium, is a permanent reminder of how other individuals have found a resolution of their wants, tensions and imagination, in terms of traditional values which are at the same time an assertion of personal human faith«284. A prescindere da quali realmente siano state le dinamiche e le ragioni che hanno potuto dar luogo a tali continuità nell’ uso di ex voto figurativi (oltre che di numerose altre credenze, simboli e pratiche rituali), sono numerosi gli autori che ne hanno rilevato l’ esistenza e la consistenza. Scrive Tommaso Valenti nel suo La chiesa monumentale della Madonna delle Lagrime: Era naturale – ed era anche consuetudine – che i fedeli volessero lasciare presso l’ immagine miracolosa il segno tangibile della loro gratitudine, a loro conforto, ad esempio ed incoraggiamento degli altri sofferenti. Era anche qui un’ antica tradizione pagana, quella delle ›tabellae pictae‹, che si ripeteva e diveniva cristiana285.

Scrive a sua volta Freedberg: »the whole practice of giving thanks by means of representations either of the part of the body that was cured or of the event from which the protagonist was saved remained an ineradicable custom. And so it remains even today, in many parts of the world«286. Non diversamente si esprime Burke: Votive images are not uniquely Christian. They may be found in Japanese shrines, for example, revealing similar preoccupations with illness and shipwreck. They were made in pre-Christian times as well. In Agrigento in Sicily, there is a church filled with ex-votos, silver (or more recently plastic) hands, legs and eyes. 282 283 284 285 286

Firpo, Biferali 2016, 9. Cf. Delumeau 1989, 194; Bronzini 1993, 8; Niccoli 2011, 43 sgg. Cf. Halbwachs 1952; Assmann 1997; Fabietti, Matera 1999. 1961, 182. 1928, 279. 1989, 137.

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Not far away is a museum of classical antiquities containing similar objects in terracotta, dating from before the time of Christ. These images testify to important continuities between paganism and Christianity, which may have left few traces in texts but are of great importance to historians of religion287.

In effetti il pinax presentificato nei versi, evocato e descritto da Leonida, al pari delle tabellae pictae latine, richiama, come segnalato, gli ex voto dipinti su tavoletta, vetro o altro supporto, ben noti agli studiosi di folklore e ampiamente documentati nei santuari cristiano-cattolici288; ciò a testimonianza della lunga continuità morfologica e funzionale di pratiche e oggetti cultuali 289 e, segnatamente, dell’ uso e della percezione delle immagini in ambito magico-religioso290. Dinanzi al reiterarsi di forme e codici della rappresentazione che restano sostanzialmente immutati dal punto di vista funzionale, dobbiamo prendere atto non solo della perduranza storica di immaginari e strategie immaginative, se non altro in ambito magico-religioso, ma anche di quella dei regimi scopici e delle modalità relazionali tra immagini ›sacre‹ e credenti291. Come in antico, almeno nel culto popolare, le immagini, bidimensionali o tridimensionali, non sono mai oggetti inerti, né il simulacro del santo, l’ immagine consacrata, si limita a rinviare a qualcosa che non è presente, a richiamarlo alla memoria o evocarlo immaginificamente292. Nella pratica cultuale viva e concreta, nello spazio-tempo performativo della credenza, le immagini ›sante‹ e ›sacre‹ sono assai più che semplici segni destinati a indirizzare il pensiero del fedele verso la storia esemplare della divinità che viene rappresentata e a evocare le verità o i dogmi della fede: le immagini di fatto presentificano ciò che raffigurano. E nella tavoletta dipinta troviamo rappresentati, l’ uno accanto all’ altro, terreno e ultraterreno, uomini e divinità. Il dio o il santo vi compaiono in figura a tradurre matericamente la manifestazione contestuale della loro presenza e potenza293. Immagini viventi. Può così dirsi che oggi come ieri, per chi permanentemente o episodicamente aderisca alle procedure del pensiero mitico, l’›immagine‹ (plastica, figurativa, sonora ecc.), non diversamente dal simbolo, perché essa stessa simbolo, evoca e rende eternamente presente ciò che illustra, consentendo, quando questa metta in scena un soggetto, di instaurare con esso un dialogo in presenza. Scrive Vernant: 287 288 289 290 291 292 293

2001, 50–51. Ciarrocchi, Mori 1960; Buttitta 1983; Bronzini 1993; Tripputi 1995; Freedberg 1989, 210 sgg.; Jacobs 2013. Vidossi 1931; Capparoni 1937; Alziator 1959; De Simoni 1986; Ferraris 2016. Apolito 1994; Faeta 1989 e 2000; Buttitta 2002a, 17 sgg. Cf. Skeates 2005; Cammarata, Coglitore, Cometa 2016. Cf. Gilles 1993, 14 sgg.; Van der Leeuw 1956, 350–351; Strong 1987, 283. Cf. Jacobs 2013, 29.

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Ignazio E. Buttitta la figure religieuse ne vise pas seulement à évoquer dans l’ esprit du spectateur qui la regarde la puissance sacrée à laquelle elle renvoie, qu’ elle ›représente‹ dans certains cas, comme dans celui de la statue anthropomorphe, ou qu elle évoque sous forme symbolique, dans d’ autres. Son ambition, plus vaste, est différente. Elle entend établir avec la puissance sacrée, à travers ce qui la figure d’ une manière ou d’ une autre, une véritable communication, un contact authentique; son ambition est de rendre présente cette puissance hic et nunc, pour la mettre à la disposition des hommes, dans les formes rituellement requises294.

Nel momento in cui è intercettata dai sensi l’ immagine è vivente, o meglio lo è ciò che essa rappresenta, »the sign has become the living embodiment of what it signifies«295. Referente, significante e significato sono contestualmente presenti nel corpo-epifanico che si impone e rivela attraverso l’ immagine sacra296. Attraverso le immagini si dà corpo sensibile a chi non ha corpo, il dio o il defunto, rendendolo visibile e consentendo di sperimentare la sua presenza. Cosicché «Quando agisce o quando prende la parola, l’ oggetto sostituisce l’ essere rappresentato: ne restituisce la presenza»297. Ricorda Cristine Havelock relativamente allo statuto delle immagini nel mondo antico: In the archaic and classical periods a clear distinction between the made object and the reality is frequently absent. That is, the sculpture may be thought to be physically comprised of flesh and blood. Thus, a statue can sometimes reach out, as it were, and address the spectator: ›Mantiklos . . . dedicated me to the Far-Darter‹, says a little bronze warrior from Thebes now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. […] The chorus in Euripides’ Ion, a drama which takes place in the sanctuary at Delphi, breaks into song when it looks around at the sculpture which possibly decorated the pediment of the Temple of Apollo. It is hard to believe they sing about stone figures. […] With popping eyes, the chorus exclaims about what they see, not as if they were objective works of art, but as if instead Herakles, Iolaos or Athena were right there in front of them fully alive and in action298.

Di questa modalità di percezione delle e di relazione con le statue possono essere riportati numerosi esempi. Tra questi Teocrito che »describes how a statue of Adonis sends terrific shivers through the girls from Syracuse attending a festival 294 295 296 297 298

1996, 362–363. Cf. Gadamer 1972, 173 sgg.; Freedberg 1989, 48 sgg.; Severi 2018, 122 sgg. Freedberg 1989, 28. Cf. Apolito 1994. Severi 2018, 123; Wunenburger 1997, 138. 1978, 99–100. Cf. Bredekamp 2010, 41 sgg.

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at Alexandria«299. Utilizzando le parole di Luis Marin possiamo può dirsi che »l’ image de marbre est dieu: elle est le dieu qu’ elle représente. Les effets par lesquels l’ image se constitue comme représentation en les provoquant présentent et montrent le dieu, ils le font apparaître dans son image«300. Se nel mondo antico, come pure in età medioevale e moderna, le statue degli dèi e degli antenati non sono mai figure senza vita, non lo sono neanche le fotografie dei morti che esponiamo nei nostri santuari domestici o, più prosaicamente, alle pareti. »La fotografia dell’ antenato […] possiede i tratti indicali tipici di tutte le fotografie, ma anche quelli simbolici propri dei simulacri«301. Sempre e comunque l’ immagine racchiude il soggetto rappresentato, lo significa, e evocandolo, lo presentifica302. Immagine e realtà lungi dall’ essere avvertite come disgiunte e contrapposte appaiono contigue e interrelate. In altre parole come ci ricorda Van der Leeuw, »Zwischen dem Heiligen und seiner Gestalt existiert Wesensgemeinschaft. […] Das Bedeutende und das Bedeutete, das Zeigende und das Gezeigte fließen zu einem einzigen Bild zusammen. […] Das Bild ist das Abgebildete, das Bedeutende das Bedeutete«303. Il potere dell’ immagine, dice Boehm, erwächst aus der Fähigkeit, ein ungreifbares und fernes Sein zu vergegenwärtigen, ihm eine derartige Präsenz zu leihen, die den Raum der menschlichen Aufmerksamkeit völlig zu erfüllen vermag. Das Bild besitzt seine Kraft in einer Verähnlichung, es erzeugt eine Gleichheit mit dem Dargestellten. Das goldene Kalb ist (in der Perspektive des Rituals) – der Gott. Das Bild und sein Inhalt verschmelzen bis zur Ununterscheidbarkeit304.

Per coloro che costantemente o episodicamente attingono a una visione mitica del mondo l’ immagine, dunque, è reale, la copia e l’ originale sono un’ unica cosa305. La loro natura artificiale »is not seen to contradict a capacity to ›exist‹ and to speak«306. Ciò non significa affatto che per essi dio o il defunto siano l’ immagine, ma che esiste un rapporto permanente e intimo tra questi e le loro rappresentazioni, attraverso e nelle quali dèi e defunti possono e devono farsi presenti in determinate circostanze.

299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306

Havelock 1978, 101. Cf. Idillio, 15. 1993, 67. Faeta 2000, 34. Cf. Ibidem, 119 sgg.; Perricone 2018. Cf. Augé 1988; Faeta 1989, 19 sgg.; Apolito 1994; Estienne et alii 2008; Freedberg 1989, 246 sgg.; Belting 2001, 174 s.; Wulf 2018, 114. 1956, 510–511 1994, 300. Lurker 1987, 10. Bredekamp 2010, 42

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L’ immagine ›sacra‹, dunque, manifesta, racconta, afferma una presenza e una storia, impone un messaggio, evoca e presentifica una realtà e al contempo rivela una verità307. Se il credente entra in relazione con l’ immagine attraverso la vista e, in taluni casi anche il tatto, l’ immagine impone la sua viva presenza attraverso lo sguardo che rivolge a chi la osserva308. Portare l’ immagine davanti agli occhi comporta l’ attivazione della sua energia; è l’ atto che ne innesca l’ agentività latente309. Essa può ›adocchiarci‹ e ›guardarci‹ perché è lì, dinanzi a noi, come materia immanente310. Può così dirsi che l’ immagine si attivi e quindi ›esista‹ nella relazione, nell’ intrecciarsi degli sguardi311. Essa è e può agire quando osservata, manipolata, conosciuta e ri-conosciuta. Ecco perché è in particolar modo in ambito rituale e cultuale che può realizzarsi ›l’ atto iconico‹, ossia esprimersi e amplificarsi Kraft das Bild dazu befähigt, bei Betrachtung oder Berührung aus der Latenz in die Außenwirkung des Fühlens, Denkens und Handelns zu springen. Im Sinne dieser Frage soll unter dem Bildakt eine Wirkung auf das Empfinden, Denken und Handeln verstanden werden, die aus der Kraft des Bildes und der Wechselwirkung mit dem betrachtenden, berührenden und auch hörenden Gegenüber entsteht312.

Non si tratta affatto in questi casi di un cortocircuito percettivo conseguente a stati alterati di coscienza che induce a »scambiare la rappresentazione con ciò che essa rappresenta«313, piuttosto di una specifica modalità della conoscenza e del rapporto uomo-mondo, culturalmente acquisita e orientata – »che si impara e si coltiva«314 –, che sviluppa potenzialità cognitive proprie di Homo sapiens315. Una connaturata ›disposizione‹, dunque, precisa Fabietti, »a cogliere una particolarità della materia […] e a investire su di essa significati e rappresentazioni che tuttavia non hanno senso al di fuori di ciò che è stato culturalmente assimilato dal soggetto«316; una modalità del vedere e del pensare, impropriamente confinata nello spazio del ›magico-religioso‹ e del ›primitivo‹ ma invero ben presente alla contemporaneità ›occidentale‹, che non distingue in modo netto e oppositivo realtà animate e non animate e che considera del tutto ›naturale‹ che in certe situazioni

307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316

Cfr Fabietti 2014, 153. Merleau-Ponty 1964; Bredekamp 2010, 190 sgg.; Wulf 2018, 125 sgg. Gell 1998; Florenskij 2003; Mitchell 2017, 107 sgg. Heidegger 1950. Cousins 2017, 45 sgg.; Belting 2008. Bredekamp 2010, 52. Fabietti 2014, 157. Mitchell 2017, 43. Fabbro 2010; Girotto, Pievani, Vallortigara 2016. 2014, 160. Cf. Havelock 1978.

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e condizioni gli oggetti possano animarsi e interagire tra loro e con gli uomini317. Come scrive Mitchell: »we are stuck with our magical, premodern attitudes toward objects, especially pictures«318, »There is no difficulty […] in demonstrating that the idea of the personhood of pictures isjust as alive in the modern world as it was in traditional societies«319. In sostanza, pur nella profonda diversità delle esperienze e dei contesti storico-geografici, sembrano potersi rilevare, almeno a livello fenomenologico e performativo, tratti comuni se non veri e propri elementi di continuità nel rapporto tra uomini e immagini, e non solo immagini squisitamente cultuali. Tali similitudini tra fenomeni di diversi e talora lontanissimi contesti culturali, tali presunte continuità di credenze e prassi rituali all’ interno di specifici contesti territoriali, possono essere rilevate, come si vedrà, anche in relazione ad alcuni simboli mitico-rituali. Sulle porte e sugli alberi. »Οἱ δὲ πάθης ἔργον τόδ’ ἐϋγραφὲς ἀκρολοφῖται / Ζανὶ παρ’ εὐπρέμνῳ τῇδ’ ἀνέθεντο δρυΐ« scrive Leonida. Le offerte votive figurate, al pari di altre tipologie di ex voto, sono ostese nei donaria dei templi o appese sulle pareti, sulle porte, sulle immagini divine, su alberi sacri320; quella dei pastori leonidei, appunto, ad una quercia: albero caro al supremo dio olimpio che cresce intorno ai suoi santuari e che di fatto oltre a offrirsi come axis mundi, canale di comunicazione tra immanenza e trascendenza, rappresenta un’ epifania vegetale della potenza e dell’ energia stesse del dio. Il singolo albero o il bosco che si levano intorno ai templi, tutt’ altro dal rappresentare elementi di corredo, addenda non necessari del paesaggio santuariale, sono espansioni coessenziali del sacrum, epifanie della divina potenza e/o strumenti indispensabili al contatto con gli dèi, e per questo, appunto, sacri. Diversi esempi di ostensioni arboree di ex voto o oggetti apotropaici ci offre la letteratura latina. Virgilio nelle Georgiche, descrivendo un rito italico connesso alla coltivazione della vite, accenna a degli oscilla appesi a un pino nell’ ambito di un rituale connesso al culto di Bacco: »Nec non Ausonii, Troia gens missa, coloni / versibus incomptis ludunt risuque soluto / oraque corticibus sumunt horrenda cavatis, / et te, Bacche, vocant per carmina laeta, tibique / oscilla ex alta suspendunt mollia pinu«321. Gli oscilla sono qui, con ogni probabilità, figurine o mascherine di cera o terracotta rappresentanti Bacco, fatte oscillare per «trarre presagi di abbondanza

317 318 319 320 321

Cf. Lévy-Bruhl 1927; Mancini 1989; Hallowell 2002. 1996, 72. Ibidem, 73. ThesCRA 2004, I 293 sgg.; Moreno 1965; De Cazanove 1993. II, 385–389.

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a favore del campo verso cui il soffio del vento ne faceva volgere le facce»322. In proposito De Saint Denis, ricordando la preghiera tradizionale rivolta dai contadini a Bacco affinché rivolga verso di essi il suo venerato capo favorendo così la crescita delle vigne, osserva: On peut même supposer qu’ à cette croyance se rattachait le rite des oscilla, dont il est question au vers 389 et qui reste mystérieux malgré le commentaire de Servius [oscillorum variae sunt opiniones] et l’ étymologie du mot. Ces figurines pouvaient être des effigies du dieu, destinées à préfigurer et à provoquer, par leur mouvement au souffle des brises, celui de la tête divine, qui faisait prospérer les vignobles partout où elle portait ses regards323.

È tuttavia possibile che tali statuette o maschere potessero detenere anche valore votivo e che non fossero altro in origine che »des têtes de victimes immolées« in onore del dio324. Sicuramente votive sono le tabellae, che adornano una quercia dedicata a Cerere, ricordate da Ovidio: »Stabat in his ingens annoso robore quercus, / una nemus; vittae mediam, memoresque tabellae, / sertaque cingebant, voti argumenta potentis«325. Le tabellae sono memores, destinate a fare memoria della benevolenza della dea, e proprio per questo ostese su una ingens quercus, una antica e grande quercia che si impone allo sguardo con il suo corredo di elementi votivi. Non diversamente presso il santuario di Diana (Vesta Nemorensis) di Ariccia »licia dependent longas uelantia saepes / et posita est meritae multa tabella deae«326. E, insieme alle tabellae, altri ex voto figurativi fittili »recanti immagini di organi genitali femminili, di donne che allattavano bambini, ma anche di strumenti di caccia e di animali del bosco o domestici«327. Il bosco sacro e il tempio con il loro corredo di simulacri, di suppellettili e di offerte votive sono dunque nel mondo antico elementi sovente coesistenti: »La présence d’ un bosquet, la prolifération des ex-voto représentent deux éléments majeurs du décor sacré du sanctuaire. Eléments de nature diverse, mais souvent étroitement imbriqués«328. Tale prassi è splendidamente documentata da un passo di Apuleio che narra di Psiche, gravida del seme di Cupido e perciò perseguita dall’ odio di Venere, vagante in cerca d’ asilo. Respinta da Cerere, presso il cui tempio, posto »in ardui montis vertice« e colmo di offerte (fasci e corone di spighe, falci 322 323 324 325 326 327 328

Scarcia 1997, 225, nota 75. Cf. Hild 1907; Boetticher 1856, 80 sgg.; Virgili 2008, 193; Mac Góráin 2014, 4 sgg. 1949, 709. Cf. Mac Góráin 2014, 392. De Saint Denis 1949, 709. Metam., VIII, 743–745. Fasti, III, 267–268. Fucecchi 1998, 226 nota 85. Cf. Blagg 1985; Green 2007; Grimal 1984. De Cazanove 1993, 112. Cf. Boetticher 1856, 59 sgg. e 156 sgg.

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e altri attrezzi contadini), si era fermata per chiedere soccorso, riprende, disperata, il cammino. Ed ecco che scorge, »inter subsitae convallis sublucidum lucum«, un altro tempio al quale, con rinnovata speranza, si avvicina. Vede allora »dona pretiosa et lacinias auro litteratas ramis arborum postibusque suffixas, quae cum gratia facti nomen deae cui fuerant dicata testabantur«. È questo un santuario di Giunone Salvatrice, la dea che suole »praegnantibus periclitantibus ultro subvenire«329. Apuleio, in poche righe, indica i caratteri dell’ ambiente dove sorgono i due distinti santuari: il primo, dedicato a Cerere, sulla cima di un’ alta montagna, il secondo, quello di Giunone, all’ interno di un bosco, e rivela, attraverso la descrizione dei doni votivi che, rispettivamente, vi si trovano, le peculiari funzioni delle dee: a Cerere vengono offerti gli strumenti e i frutti del lavoro contadino, a Giunone delle bende che riportano inscritta la speciale grazia ricevuta, certo un matrimonio felice o un agognato parto. Cerere, dea delle messi, sovrintende, dunque, in special modo, ai cicli del tempo e del lavoro, alla produzione; Giunone al ciclo della vita e alla durata della famiglia, alla riproduzione; ambedue le divinità possono, se favorevoli, proteggere gli uomini e soccorrerli nella sventura e nelle avversità. Quelli della protezione, produzione e riproduzione, sono, d’ altronde, problemi fondamentali e comuni a tutte le società umane e da sempre al centro delle loro preoccupazioni e delle loro preghiere agli dèi. Sono gli dèi, al di là di ogni umano impegno materiale e profano, i soli in grado di promuovere e garantire la sicurezza, il nutrimento e la continuità della vita umana, animale e vegetale. A condizione però che ad essi ci si rivolga nei luoghi e nei modi opportuni: a Cerere, scrive Apuleio, Psiche si accosta, dopo tribolato itinerare, implorante, gettandosi ai suoi piedi, bagnandoli con le sue lacrime, spazzando la terra coi capelli, e a Giunone, pregandola in ginocchio e abbracciandone l’ altare. Non diversamente cioè da come i fedeli cristiani si accostavano ieri e continuano oggi ad accostarsi al Cristo, alla Madonna, ai Santi che risiedono nei tanti santuari dispersi tra i monti, le valli, i boschi di tutta Europa. Siamo, con Apuleio, nel II secolo dopo Cristo, potremmo credere, fermandoci a guardare i contesti ambientali, le tipologie di offerte e le prassi devozionali, di essere nel nostro. Osserva Lowe che »However, the suspension of votive offerings from trees has been attested in various eras from antiquity to the present day, and in diverse regions«330. Più in generale simbolismi vegetali sono invero ricorrenti nelle celebrazioni religiose ›popolari‹ di Santi/e, Madonne, Cristi sotto vario titolo in tutta l’ area euro-mediterranea, segnatamente in quelle regioni che sono state caratterizzate fino a un recente passato (e che in parte lo restano tutt’ oggi) da un’ economia prettamente agro-pastorale. Interi alberi, fronde, frutti, spighe compaiono in numerosi casi, isolati o in associazione fra loro e con altri simboli rituali (pani, pasti 329 330

Metam., VI, 3–4. 2011, 119.

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comuni, falò e cortei di torce, danze, corse, agoni, ecc.) propri dei pattern simbolici agrari331, sia come decoro di spazi e di immagini cultuali sia assemblati in più o meno complessi artefatti (che non di rado costituiscono il simbolo centrale della festa) sia come elementi direttamente connessi, spesso sul piano della leggenda di fondazione del culto, alla sacra entità cui la festa è dedicata332. Si tratta, in tutta evidenza, di simboli rituali attraverso i quali si rende esplicita la connessione umanamente avvertita tra ritmi naturali, cicli produttivi e l’ intervento di potenze trascendenti la sfera dell’ umano333. Nei casi in cui ad essere costitutivi del culto del/la Santo/a, della Madonna, del Cristo sono gli alberi, alla dimensione vitalistica, ossia alla rappresentazione per arbores di una forza generativa che ciclicamente si rinnova coinvolgendo ogni forma di vita e più in generale ogni manifestazione cosmica, si associa la dimensione assiale, la concreta rappresentazione cioè di un centro che orienta lo e nello spazio e, al contempo, di un tramite attraverso il quale si realizza la comunicazione tra immanenza e trascendenza, tra mondo e ultra-mondo (celeste e infero). Questo è quanto si osserva tutt’ oggi nel culto della Madonna Myrtidiotissa di Palianis, monastero che sorge a qualche chilometro dal villaggio di Venerato in provincia di Heraklion. Gli ex voto non sono depositati, come avviene in altri simili casi, in prossimità dell’ icona all’ interno del tempio ma appesi ai rami di un secolare e imponente albero di mirto che si leva al suo esterno, poco discosto dall’ abside. Si ritiene, infatti, – così narrano tanto i fedeli quanto le pie monache – che all’ interno del tronco sia inglobata una più antica e sacra icona della Vergine di cui quella custodita in chiesa sarebbe solo una fedele riproduzione: cosa che rende l’ albero una sorta di emanazione dell’ icona stessa e, di fatto, una permanente (viva, presente e tangibile) epifania di Maria. In questa circostanza ancora una volta si accerta come »il dialogo ricercato dalle immagini sacre« sia, in primo luogo, quello con il devoto, e come il loro ruolo sia quello di »rendere manifesta al credente la sua stessa credenza«334. È nel simbolismo rituale e nell’ immagine cultuale che si rende esplicita e si fa presente la ›potenza‹ divina, la ›trascendenza‹, che si fanno cose concrete e esperibili dai sensi la “credenza e il ›mito‹, che si rivela in verità tutto ciò che precede, tutto ciò che è e che c’ è, tutto ciò che sarà, che dovrà essere. Estendendo a tutti i simboli il ›valore magico‹ della parola di cui scrive Florenskij, può dirsi che questi possiedano ›potenza creativa‹ e »capacità […] di condensare strati differenti di significato«. Nella parola accolta nella sua forza originaria così come negli oggetti, nelle immagini, nei gesti che assumono culturalmente valore simbolico, »individuale e universale possono coappartenere […] senza separarsi e senza confondersi«335. Il simbolo, scrive Florenskij, rappresenta »una realtà che è più di se stessa. […] Esso 331 332 333 334 335

Gaster 1950, 6–48. Buttitta 2006b; 2015. Buttitta 2013. Fabietti 2014, 196. Lingua 2003, 13.

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è un’ entità che manifesta qualcosa che esso stesso non è, che è più grande e che però si rivela attraverso questo simbolo nella sua essenza«; e ancora: »il simbolo è una realtà la cui energia cresciuta insieme o, meglio, confusa insieme con un altro essere più prezioso rispetto a lui, contiene in sé quest’ ultimo«336. Il simbolo, un simbolo, aspira certo a detenere un valore assoluto perché è l’ assoluto che evoca e insieme presentifica e tuttavia non va mai assunto come realtà ontologica e universale, esso è assoluto in relazione a un preciso contesto di ricezione, ergo è contemporaneamente nel suo manifestarsi assoluto e relativo. Si badi bene, dunque, a non cadere nell’ illusione di poter raggiungere un’ interpretazione unica e univoca di un qualsivoglia simbolo quand’ anche assunto nel suo contesto, quand’ anche osservato con gli occhi stessi dei suoi fruitori poiché al di là delle sensibilità individuali (che esistono ma di cui è davvero impossibile tenere conto) resta il problema degli ambiti e dei livelli di fruizione. Se, infatti, il simbolo si propone in assoluto come »the representation of a reality on a certain level of reference by a corresponding reality on another«337, come »a sensible entity that directs the understanding from the physical towards the supra-physical levels of reality«338, cioè, già osservava Ugo di San Vittore, come »collatio videlicet […] coaptatio visibilium formarum ad demonstrationem rei invisibilis propositarum«339, va tenuto in debito conto che all’ interno di una stessa cultura, una stessa immagine, uno stesso oggetto, uno stesso gesto, una stessa parola possono assumere funzioni e significati diversi, possono rivelare diverse verità proprio in relazione al sotto-sistema in cui sono inseriti. Essi cioè propongono, all’ interno di una comune modalità percettiva culturalmente orientata, una diversa o parziale rivelazione alle diverse categorie di fruitori pronte ad assumerli secondo la diversa preparazione che gli compete (sacerdoti e fedeli; iniziati e non-iniziati; uomini e donne; guerrieri e civili; ecc.)340. Come rileva Eliade, »Il y a une distance incommensurable entre celui qui participe religieusement au mystère sacré d’ une liturgie et celui qui jouit en esthète de sa beauté spectaculaire et de la musique qui l’ accompagne«341. Partendo da altro punto di vista così si esprime Durkheim: Que l’ on considère des religions comme celles de l’ Egypte, de l’ Inde ou de l’ antiquité classique! C’ est un enchevêtrement touffu de cultes multiples, variables avec les localités, avec les temples, avec les générations, les dynasties, les invasions, etc. Les superstitions populaires y sont mêlées aux dogmes les plus raffinés. Ni la pensée ni l’ activité religieuse ne sont également réparties dans la masse des fidèles; suivant les hommes, les milieux, les circonstances, les croyances comme 336 337 338 339 340 341

2003, 28. Coomaraswamy 2007, 100. Snodgrass 1990, 2. In Hierarchiam coel., III: PL 175 – 960D. Cf. Lyotard 2002, 219 sgg. Cf. Turner 1967. 1977, 9.

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Ignazio E. Buttitta les rites sont ressentis de façons différentes. Ici, ce sont des prêtres, là, des moines, ailleurs, des laïcs; il y a des mystiques et des rationalistes, des théologiens et des prophètes, etc.342.

Continuità delle prassi. Le analogie morfologiche e funzionali tra pinax, tabellae pictae e ex voto cristiani testimoniano certamente una certa continuità delle forme e delle prassi cultuali, rivelano il reiterarsi di modalità di interazione tra fedeli e divinità a livello del culto popolare. Tali analogie, morfologiche, semantiche e funzionali, osservabili a livello del simbolismo rituale, in tutta evidenza non comportano però una analogia o sovrapponibilità dei sistemi di credenze. Le rappresentazioni delle potenze trascendenti, il loro spazio di intervento nella sfera umana, il loro concreto potere, sono indubitabilmente diversi nel tempo e nello spazio e presentano piuttosto una significativa variabilità culturale. Ciò che costituisce una costante nel rapporto tra immanenza e trascendenza è piuttosto il fatto che le credenze religiose si esprimono, si rendono esplicite e concretamente osservabili anche per gli stessi attori, nei comportamenti, poiché »la dimensione materiale è ciò che, di fatto, rende possibile pensare e ›concretizzare‹ l’ esperienza della trascendenza«. Oggetti, immagini, corpi, sostanze, artefatti sono »tutti elementi […] centrali per agire e al tempo stesso per pensare ›religiosamente‹«343, anzi può dirsi che questi nel loro rivelarsi e interagire all’ interno del campo rituale diano forma al pensiero, lo orientino verso conoscenze meta-reali che stanno fuori del campo sensoriale, creino sensibilità, inducano specifici comportamenti, influenzino significativamente i rapporti tra gli uomini e i rapporti tra questi e il mondo344. Religious faith manifests itself in an infinite variety of material forms. Without their material expressions, religions float in theological ether, and spiritualities enter the void, lifeless and deracinated. The human mind and hand, be they refined and delicate or rude and horny, are turned doggedly down the generations to the creation of countless material modes of expressing religious sensibility, identity and belonging. When dealing with the things of the spirit, matter matters inordinately. The particular ambivalences of the material order in relation to the ›immaterial‹ world – concealment–revelation, barrier–breach, adornment–defacement, profanation–consecration – play out in every area of religious expressions. Truly, with the tenebrous mirror of material reality ever before our gaze, we see things spiritual and eternal ›through a glass darkly‹ (1 Cor. 13: 12)345.

342 343 344 345

Durkheim 1912, 7. Fabietti 2014, 7. Bredekamp 2010, 5 sgg. Cf. Severi 2018. Keenan, Arweck 2006, 1.

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Il rituale, dunque, attraverso la ridondante presentazione del simbolismo materiale, immateriale e performativo, di fatto »fa la religione, la rende cioè ›concreta‹, comprensibile e comunicabile agli occhi stessi di coloro che vi si riconoscono«346. Le attività rituali sono, infatti, lo spazio-tempo in cui si comunica, attraverso un peculiare linguaggio (simbolico) ritenuto di particolare efficacia (perché sancito e legittimato dalla tradizione), qualcosa (la validità di una norma, un’ istanza esistenziale, l’ avvenuta trasformazione, ecc.) a qualcuno (gli dèi, gli spiriti, le forze della natura, gli uomini, ecc.). Il rituale è pertanto sostanziato da forme di comunicazione verbale e, specificamente, non verbale che, sostenendosi a vicenda, ne amplificano, attraverso la ricorsività e la ridondanza dei gesti, degli atti, delle immagini, dei suoni e delle parole, il messaggio e dunque l’ efficacia347. La ridondanza comunicativa del simbolismo rituale non va però intesa come un sovrapporsi di discorsi autonomi – e quindi non strettamente necessari l’ uno all’ altro – tesi a sottolinearsi e rafforzarsi reciprocamente, piuttosto come un continuo gioco di scambi e di rinvii che vede tutti i simboli rituali agire sistemicamente ed essere gli uni semioticamente consustanziali agli altri. In ambito rituale cioè coesistono e convergono, rafforzandosi, sostenendosi, spiegandosi l’ un l’ altro eppure l’ uno all’ altro restando irriducibili, diversi elementi simbolici (materiali e immateriali) e diversi sistemi di trasmissione (il verbale, il sonoro, il gestuale, ecc.), diretti a produrre un messaggio contestualmente univoco e che però, a livello della ricezione, si rivela pluri-semantico e pluri-funzionale, poiché diversamente assunto secondo il ruolo, lo status, le attese dei diversi partecipanti348. È d’ altronde nella partecipazione ai rituali festivi, nello stare, nel fare, nel vedere insieme, che si incorporano mimeticamente le regole, i valori, i significati culturali e sociali condivisi349. I riti, i simboli rituali che li sostanziano, sono permeati dall’ideologia della cultura che li esprime e »integrally linked to a culture’ s or society’ s central collective valuations and preferences«; per tale ragione possiedono valenze paradigmatiche e un ordinamento preciso che ne sostiene l’ efficacia350. È pertanto a partire dalla loro osservazione, dallo studio delle variabilità e delle trasformazioni, che può ricostruirsi se non la religione nella sua realtà concreta almeno il sentimento religioso, ossia la ›religione praticata‹, il modo in cui le credenze religiose sono, in quel luogo e in quel momento, compiutamente percepite e vissute dai fedeli. Se lo spazio-tempo del rito religioso è, infatti, il luogo elettivo di dispiegamento del simbolismo rituale, esso è anche la realtà culturale entro la quale i simboli amplificano la loro costitutiva agentività, il loro potere comunicativo, in cui conoscenze pratiche e saperi possono concretamente esplicarsi e chiarirsi, in cui, dunque, si

346 347 348 349 350

Fabietti 2014, 153. Tambiah 1985, 128; Severi 2018, 123 sgg. Turner 1967; Mitchell 1994, 94 sgg.; Cometa 2017, 18 s.; Severi 2018. Cf. Wulf 2018, 51 sgg. Tambiah 1985, 2. Cf. Naerebout 1997, 330.

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passa nel modo più evidente e pregnante dalla competence alla performance351. Come aveva già suggerito Robertson Smith, quando si voglia concretamente cogliere il portato culturale di una religione è assai più conducente guardare alle pratiche piuttosto che alle credenze352. Arte religiosa. Gli ex voto figurativi, tanto quelli che arricchivano i santuari greco-romani quanto quelli tutt’ ora ampiamente osservabili nei santuari cristiani, costituiscono una esemplare tipologia di arte religiosa intesa strictu sensu come l’ insieme dei prodotti figurativi e plastici che presuppongono e esprimono sistemi di credenze intorno all’ esistenza di realtà e/o entità trascendenti l’ umano. Più estesamente come forme d’ arte religiosa possono essere considerate tutte le espressioni materiali (edifici, dipinti, sculture, strumenti cultuali, ecc.) o immateriali (narrazioni, musiche, canti, danze, ecc.) che attendono, secondo forme il cui messaggio è condiviso dai fruitori, al compito di reificare o comunicare qualcosa in un contesto cultuale e, più precipuamente, rituale. Come osserva Gill, nei prodotti artistici si rivelano con maggior forza ed evidenza la mentalità dell’ uomo, le sue idee e le sue concezioni sulla realtà immanente e trascendente, la sua ›religione‹ e la sua ›filosofia‹: In art works the human being is a mentality at work; in such works mentality predominates, is ruler. […]. We hold […] that every person and every people is concerned to lay hold of reality and that all the works of men display this concern. We hold that different peoples and different times display different works because among such peoples and in such times different notions of reality have been pursued. Now the phrase ›notion of reality‹ is simply another way of saying Religion and Philosophy. To say, therefore, that the works of men reflect and are the product of their ›notions of reality‹ is the same as saying that the works of men reflect and are the product of their religion and philosophy. Religion and philosophy are as necessary to the production of such monuments as the Forth Bridge or the Aqueduct at Nimes as they are to the production of such monuments as the Cathedral of Chartres, the Pyramids of Egypt, or the Temples of Ajanta. […] . It is not that I am saying that the works of men, Hindu or Christian, are good because there is this or that philosophy and religion behind them. I am saying more than that. I am saying that it is because there is this or that philosophy and religion behind them that they are there at all – that it is to this or that philosophy and religion that such works owe their very existence, their very being353.

351 352 353

Staal 1996, 237 sgg.; Chomsky 1980, 217 sgg. Cf. 1889, 15 sgg. 1933, 13–16.

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Guardando da questa prospettiva può dirsi che nelle società antiche e tradizionali le arti siano sempre ›religiose‹ poiché in queste »le style, les conventions esthétiques, l’ organisation sociale, la vie spirituelle, sont structuralement liés«354. L’ arte preistorica e etnologica, ma anche larga parte di quella folklorica, è sempre e comunque religiosa, è immanenza non scindibile dalla trascendenza355, in quanto o esprime direttamente concetti e soggetti pertinenti la dimensione delle credenze o illustra aspetti di una vita, quella dell’ uomo di qualsivoglia società ›tradizionale‹ che, di per se stessa, è permeata di sacro, ed è, altresì, senza nulla sottrarre al valore estetico assegnatovi da artefici e fruitori e alle funzioni descrittive di volta in volta assunte nei suoi contesti d’ uso, essenzialmente simbolica, nel senso che evoca e reifica, fa presente entro e attraverso la sua rappresentazione una realtà, un’ idea, una potenza, un mito, una visione del mondo. D’ altronde larga parte dei prodotti artistici, ab origine, è chiamata a descrivere o ad essere parte funzionale di attività mitico-rituali. È cioè realizzata per essere parte attiva di un discorso accompagnato dal canto, dal suono, dalla danza, dalla parola sacra o estrapolata da una classe di oggetti simili e trasformata in ›materia sacra‹ dalla parola o da altra azione rituale356. L’ arte religiosa comunica o meglio nasce per comunicare sempre qualcosa, non si riduce a mero elemento estetico se non per chi è del tutto estraneo al contesto culturale di appartenenza, presupponendo sistemi di conoscenze e valori condivisi, sia pur – come si diceva con le parole di Eliade e Durkheim – su diversi livelli. È dunque evidente che il significato non è intrinseco al prodotto/oggetto ma è culturalmente e storicamente determinato357. Ciò che ci appare dotato, hic et nunc, di un certo senso e di una certa funzione in tutta evidenza ha rivestito, per gli uomini che ne hanno fatto uso in un altro tempo e in un altro luogo, un valore spesso del tutto diverso. Scrive Diop nell’ introdurre il volume illustrato L’ art nègre: »il est […] pour le moins discutable que les objets ici reproduits jouent, dans le cadre de la communauté noire, le même rôle que l’ art en Europe. Le vocable ›art‹ ne recouvrirait pas la même réalité d’ un continent à l’ autre«358. Più estesamente rileva Firth: »To give one’ s own emotional reaction to a work of art is legitimate; to argue that this reaction is a test of the aesthetic quality of the work is questionable; but to infer from it anything about the original conditions in which the work was created is unsafe in the extreme«359. Se questo può dirsi per l’ arte etnologica tanto più vale per le produzioni artistiche/simboliche preistoriche e proto-storiche che, già di per sé lacunose e frammentarie, non sono accompagnate da tracce evidenti della dimensione im354 355 356 357 358 359

Lévi-Strauss 1958, 294. Cf. Florenskij 2016; Firth 1961; Lowie 1980. Cf. Lowie 1980, 104 s.; Severi 2004 e 2018; Otte 2012; Fabietti 2014. Cf. Carchia, Salizzoni 1980, 15; Bourdieu 2012, 9. 1951, 5. Cf. Haselberger 1975, 63. 1961, 160.

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materiale (pensieri, gesti, parole). L’ oggetto ›estetico‹ si presenta in questi casi come muta sintesi di modi di pensare ed agire, di concezioni dell’ uomo e del mondo, del tempo e dello spazio, di processi di cui assai difficile è comprendere, non potendo compiutamente ricostruire l’ originario contesto d’ uso, funzioni e significati. Se tuttavia le culture si configurano come una forma di ordinamento e governo del mondo e però i paesaggi e le sfide ambientali si presentano diversificati nel tempo e nello spazio, i processi intellettuali messi in campo sin dalla preistoria da Homo sapiens per affrontare la realtà esterna (e interna all’ uomo stesso nella sua necessaria auto-percezione) sono identici360. Per tale ragione è un fatto del tutto ovvio, piuttosto che desueto, che si rinvengano risposte analoghe, quindi analoghe forme di simbolizzazione della realtà esperita, in contesti culturali mai entrati in rapporto361. Basti in proposito pensare alle conseguenze determinate dall’ uso del fuoco362 e dall’ adozione di stili di vita sedentari e fondati sulla coltivazione delle piante, sui regimi di temporalità e sull’ organizzazione sociale363. Seguendo percorsi in larga parte diversi, giungiamo a considerazioni non dissimili da quelle di Florenskij circa il rapporto tra culto e cultura. Certamente per Homo religiosus, il visibile significa in funzione dell’ invisibile, tutto ciò che si osserva e viene perimetrato, che viene intellettualmente discretizzato dall’ unicum continuum spazio temporale, è, può essere, perché inscritto in un sistema di rimandi ove immanente e trascendente restano – intuitivamente o riflessivamente – inscindibili. È partendo da questi presupposti che Florenskij, nel considerare il culto spazio di confine e contatto tra visibile e invisibile, tra terreno e ultraterreno, luogo elettivo cioè di »materializzazione dell’ esperienza simbolica«364, afferma che »la cultura, come risulta chiaro anche dall’ etimologia, è un derivato del culto, ossia un ordinamento del mondo secondo le categorie del culto. La fede determina il culto e il culto la concezione del mondo, da cui deriva la cultura«365. L’ indubbia relazionalità tra cultura, culto e fede (credenza) piuttosto che in termini causali va piuttosto considerata come processo circolare: sia perché se la cultura – correttamente assunta come entità dinamica – è costantemente sottoposta a trasformazioni e riaggiustamenti in funzione delle evenienze cultuali, è vero anche il contrario, e cioè che trasformazioni culturali possono incidere sulle credenze, sulle pratiche e sulle concezioni religiose; sia perché la stessa fede, intesa come esito della umana disposizione al credere, non è un ›sentimento‹ univoco e, piuttosto, assume connotati diversi nei diversi contesti storico-culturali, determinando mutamenti a livello del culto e quindi della cultura. Guardando pertanto 360 361 362 363 364 365

Cf. Otte 2012. Cf. Lévi-Strauss 1958. Cf. Perlès 1977; Goudsblom 1992; Buttitta 2002b. Cf. Grottanelli 1987; Giusti 1996; Cauvin 1994; Scott 2017. Valentini 2016, 9. Florenskij 2007, 7. Cf. Idem 2016, 155.

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ai prodotti ›artistici‹, di ogni tipo e di ogni tempo, quali esiti di procedure intellettuali prima che manuali, appare chiaro come essi possano costituire indicatori particolarmente rappresentativi della dimensione ideologica, sovrastrutturale, di una società e possano aiutarci a ricostruire, in assenza di altri documenti o in concorso con essi, la dimensione immateriale della cultura, ossia la storia umana nella sua complessità366.

366

Cf. Burke 2001.

Figures

Fig. 1. Roccavaldina, St. Nicholas festival: Procession of the ox (ph. A. Russo – G. Muccio)

Fig. 2. Alì Superiore, St. Agatha festival: St. Agatha and St. Catherine with loom and peplos (ph. A. Russo – G. Muccio)

Fig. 3. Leonforte, St. Joseph festival: The votive altar of bread (ph. R. Perricone)

Fig. 4. Salemi, St. Joseph festival: The sacred lunch of Saints (ph. A. Russo – G. Muccio)

Fig. 5. Palianis, Panaghia Myrtidiotissa festival: The sacred myrtle and the ex voto (ph. I. E. Buttitta)

Fig. 6. Naso, Our Lady of Grace festival: Procession with laurel (ph. A. Russo – G. Muccio)

Fig. 7. Cerami, St. Sebastian festival: The fight for the circu (ph. A. Maggio)

Fig. 8. Caltabellotta, Easter: St. Michael’ s rigattiata (ph. A. Russo – G. Muccio)

Fig. 9. Bordonaro, Epiphany: The assault on pagghiaru (ph. A. Russo – G. Muccio)

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