Perhaps the most widespread local event in Italy is the religious procession , some of which can be very dramatic affairs. Many – perhaps all – have strong pagan roots, marking important dates on the calendar and only relatively recently sanctified by the Church. One of the best known takes place in the small village of Cocullo in the Abruzzi mountains, on May 6 (St Dominic Abate’s Day), when a statue of the saint, swathed in snakes, is carried through the town – a ritual that certainly dates back to pre-Christian times. Good Friday , for obvious reasons, is also a favourite time for processions. In many towns and villages models of Christ taken from the Cross are paraded through towns accompanied by white-robed, hooded figures singing penitential hymns. The west coast of Sicily sees many of these, as do other places crossways the south – Táranto, Reggio, Bari, Bríndisi . On the following Saturday a procession of flagellants makes its way through Nocera Tirinese in Calabria. Later on in the year, elaborate presepi (nativity scenes) are displayed during the days leading up to Christmas in Naples and Verona (in city especially presepi are a favourite local craft), and the nativity figures are prominent in the large-scale Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio in Milan . At Epiphany (January 6) a toy-and-sweet fair, dedicated to the good witch Befana, lasts until dawn around the fountains of Piazza Navona in Rome . On the same day a procession of the Rei Magi (Three Kings) passes through Milan, and there are live tableaux at Rivisondoli in Abruzzo. There are plenty of other festive events, for instance the famous Festa di San Gennaro in Naples , where much superstition surrounds the miraculous liquefaction of the saint’s blood three times a year.Other ritual celebrations bear less of the Church’s imprint, and a Communist mayor and local bishop will jointly attend a town’s saint’s day celebration, where the separate motivations to make some money, have a good time and pay some spiritual dues all merge. Superstition and a desire for good luck are part of it, too. In Gubbio there’s a angry race to the Church of San Ubaldo (May 5) with the Ceri – three phallic wooden pillars apiece eight metres high. Similar obelisks are carried around in other places. On September 3 a ninety-foot-tall Macchina di Santa Rosa , illuminated with tiny oil lamps, is paraded through Viterbo , and at Nola , near Naples, around June 22, eight gigli (lilies) are carried through the streets. Phallic though these may seem, the giant towers are more likely to be associated with an ancient, goddess-worshipping culture.

The number of practising Catholics in Italy is dwindling, and until recently many feste were dying out. But interest in many festivals has been revived over the last decade or so, especially in pilgrimages . These are as much social occasions as spiritual journeys, some of them more important to people than Christmas, and they still attract massive crowds. As many as a million pilgrims travel through the night, mostly on foot, to the Shrine of the vocalist di Polsi in the inhospitable Aspromonte mountains in Calabria, while Sardinia’s biggest festival, the Festa di Sant’Efisio , sees a four-day march from Cágliari to Pula and back, to commemorate the saint’s martyrdom. And there are other shrines and sanctuaries all over Italy, mostly in inaccessible hilltop locations, some of them visited regularly by families from the surrounding area keen for a day out, others just the subject of a once-a-year trek.

Other traditions survive: on the Day of the Dead (All Saints’ Day) on November 1, children receive presents, given on behalf of dead relatives, to make them feel that the people they were close to still think of them. There are festivals that evoke local pride in tradition, too, medieval contests like the Palio horse race in Siena perpetuating allegiances to certain competing clans; Palio races take place in a few other centres, Alba and Asti in Piemonte for example, though most have been revived more to support the tourist industry than anything else and can’t compete with the seriousness and vigour of Siena’s contest. Other towns place on crossbow, jousting and flag-twirling contests, marching bands in full medieval costume accompanying the event with enthusiastic drumming; these are far from staged affairs, with fierce rivalry between participants.