Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto – the Varette and the Visilla

Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto – the Varette and the Visilla

On the occasion of the celebration of the Holy Friday in Barcelona Pozzo di Gotto attends two distinct and contemporary processions of statues, locally indicated as varette. The reason for this duplication is due to the administrative union between the villages of Barcelona and Pozzo di Gotto wanted in 1836 by Ferdinand II King of the Two Sicilies. The processions are characterized by the presence of 13 statuary groups placed on wagons and the priest who carries a relic of the Holy Cross. The procession organized by the faithful of Barcelona is also characterized by the presence of seven groups of singers, the visillanti, that during the ceremony singing songs polyvocal said Visilla (Vexilla Regis).

The two processions begin in the afternoon, in Barcelona from the Church of St. John the Baptist and at Pozzo di Gotto by the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, along the streets of his own district. Finally, shortly after sunset, they meet at the Longano Bridge that separates the two villages, in a climate of deep emotional engagement. Here processions parading next to each other then taking the road back.

In Pozzo di Gotto, in the evening of Holy Thursday, after the celebration of the Mass and the ritual of dinner, twelve men dressed as apostles walk through the village “in search of the captive Christ”, visiting the cribs set up in the churches, accompanied by the sound of the troccoli and the singing of the visillants.

A procession of varette, curated by the Brotherhood of SS. Crucifix, also takes place in Messina starting from the Oratory of Peace. The solemn procession crosses the main streets of the city and after a stop in Piazza Duomo it is back at the Oratory which was playing. In Messina also the Easter meeting between the Risen and the Sorrowful is held in the picturesque Piazza Duomo.