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PROTAGONISTS
- Confraternities: Santissimo Crocifisso, Solitudine and Gonfalone.
In procession the sisters of the Confraternity are dressed in black. They wear shawls on their shoulders and veils on their heads. They hold candles and rosaries in their white-gloved hands. - The brothers wear ankle length white starched tunics
and hoods which cover their faces and black
sashes around their waists. - The women cling to the simulacrum of the dead
Christ throughout the procession to the Cathedral.
They suffer and cry like the Mother who lost her Son.
Often they are fulfilling a vow they had made previously. - The two standards, dating from XVIII century,
are decorated with the symbols of the Passion:
the rooster, the nails, the sword, the mantle and the dice of the Roman soldiers. - The wooden simulacrum of the dead Christ
which is carried on men’s shoulders on a litter
and is sheltered by a canopy.
- The statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, who takes her Son to the Church, is dressed in mourning clothes. On Easter morning the symbolic meeting between the Madonna and the risen Christ will take place in a procession called S’Incontru.
- Hymns are sung by the faithful. These hymns form part of the oral tradition of these rites. They have been handed down from one generation to the other throughout the centuries and have never been written down. The solemnity of these songs always arouses a deep emotional reaction.
- The devotion of the faithful is a collective demonstration of immense faith.