Le Terrae, Day 14

Good Friday. We had a leisurely start to the day, and then decided to go to lunch in the old town of Orte where we would also go for the Good Friday procession that evening. Just 7 km down the road, it's the hill town for this area. On Tuesday before the Faddens left, Del and Larry and I went to a hillside sanctuary across from the town to take morning light pictures.


We had lunch at Taverna Roberteschi, which specializes in fish. It was excellent! We returned to the villa and enjoyed the evening. We left about 8:30 for the "Dead Christ Procession" in Orte. These processions happen all over the hill town areas of Lazio, Umbria, and Tuscany, but the one in Orte is the oldest in Italy. They've been doing it for over 1000 years. It's basically a torch-lit procession made up of robe-clad groups from the contradas (districts) of the city.

We arrived in time to get seats on the stairs of the main church. At 9:30 p.m., the torch-lit processions came out one by one from all the streets around the piazza. Each group of about 60 people had 7 cross, including one very big cross carried in the middle of the group. All the cross-bearers also had chains around their feet, as did many of the others. Many were barefoot or in sandals. The colors of their robes went with the contrada from which they came. Orte old town maps on the walls of Orte show the districts by these colors. The groups were in red, white, black, blue, green, and black and white.

The groups walked into the piazza and then walked down the main street to the piazza down a ways. Then they all came back into the main piazza by torchlight, with the town band playing. At the end was a huge bier with an image of the dead Christ in it, carried by 16 men. That was followed by an image of Mary also carried by many men. Everything was candle-lit.It was all very impressive. After the local Archbishop/Monseigneur gave a sermon, there was some medieval chanting, then the whole works left the piazza by a different road, and everyone followed. It was very impressive to listen to the band, to the rosary said as the procession paused, and to see the candlelight reflected off the narrow stone streets. Many people were in the windows of their houses, some with candles as well.

We walked down the road and then kept going to our car, down the high road that drops off to nothing on both sides. We passed the villa that is literally built into the ancient Roman acqueduct that also belongs to the Vernaldi sisters. Quite a place. Anna's daughter is using it for her masters thesis at the University of Washington, and Peter Cohan is her supervisor!