The Mysteries of Campobasso

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Mysteries of Campobasso, Corpus Christi tradition with living representations

A city in celebration, you can feel it in the air from the days before.
Irresistible music, perfect for an event that combines tradition, religion and folklore.
Angels, Saints and Devils parading overhead.

The Mysteries of Campobasso are all that and much more!

On Corpus Christi Sunday, in fact, for the past three hundred years or so, ingenious devices designed by the Campobassan genius Paolo Saverio Di Zinno (1718-1781) at the request of the city’s Confraternities and made by the city’s master ironworkers have paraded through the streets of the capital.

The Confraternities wanted to make stable the sacred living representations on stretchers carried on the shoulders that had already taken place for centuries on Corpus Christi Day and whose first evidence dates back to the 16th century with the staging of the “Triumphs” on the occasion of the feudal lord’s visit to the city at the time.

For centuries, therefore, on this day the city has come alive to witness the parade of living representations placed on wooden stretchers and carried on the shoulders. Additional feature, or “mystery,” is the alloy with which the structure supporting some of the figures is made; this one, made of metal, is light but strong, bends but does not break, and gives those supported by it a characteristic jerking motion with each step of the bearers.
The structures, hidden in the clothing of the figures and the objects of the scene, make the vision of angels, saints and sustained devils almost surreal, so much that their flight seems real and natural.

There were eighteen Mysteries originally performed. Six, unfortunately, were destroyed in the 1805 earthquake. After World War II, a 13th was built based on a draft by Di Zinno.

The thirteen Mysteries currently parading are: St. Isidore, St. Crispin, St. Gennaro, Abraham, Mary Magdalene, St. Anthony the Abbot, Immaculate Conception, St. Leonard, St. Roch, Assumption, St. Michael, St. Nicholas, and the Most Holy Sacred Heart of Jesus.

All of them with historical and religious significance, all beautiful and amazing, all masterfully interpreted by the figures, the Mysteries of Campobasso, however, are most famous for the devils.
Particularly in the one of St. Anthony Abbot, the scene is taken not so much by the saint, in the center, but by the devils below, one represented by an actual devil and the other in the form of a beautiful girl to symbolize temptation.

And the ensuing scene is the most characteristic of the entire event, with the devil tempting the damsel, who is not supposed to laugh, with his “Tunzella tunzella, vietenn vietenn” (damsel damsel, come with me come with me).

The many children involved, then, make these living machines even more beautiful and make everyone feel the attachment of the people of Campobasso to this tradition, which will still have a long life and will not be lost.

All of the parade is accompanied by Rossini’s Moses played by various marching bands, which makes the air even more charged with joy and magic.