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Varia di Palmi

Field	Value
name	Varia di Palmi
image	Varia-palmi-2008.jpg
caption	Transporting the "Varia di Palmi" (2008)
genre	Festival
location	Palmi, Italy
date	Last Sunday of August
frequency	Annual
first	1582

The Varia di Palmi is a Catholic festival that takes place on the last Sunday of August, in Palmi, Italy, in honor of the city's patron saint and protector, the Virgin Mary, known as Our Lady of the Sacred Letter. The event is the most important festival in the Calabria region.

The Varia is a huge holy wagon that represents the Universe and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Above the sacred chariot, 200 "mbuttaturi" (carriers) carry 16 m tall human figures: "Animella" (child representing the Virgin Mary) and human figures representing "Padreterno" God, the apostles, and angels. The entire structure weighs 20 t.

The event includes a procession the day before, displaying the painting of "Our Lady of the Sacred Letter" and the shrine of the "sacred hair".

The event is part of a network of "Celebrations of big shoulder-borne processional structures", inserted in 2013 in the list of UNESCO Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. In addition, the Istituto Centrale per la Demoetnoantropologia ("Central Institute of Demoethnoanthropology") in Rome cataloged the event as "intangible heritage" of the regions of Italy and Rome. Palmi organizes the festival under the patronage of the Province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria and religious institutions.

The origins of the festival date back to 1582, when the Senate of Messina gave a hair of the Virgin Mary to the town of Palmi, in gratitude for the aid provided to the Sicilian town during a plague. As a result of this gift, Palmi Messina imported the tradition of celebrating the Assumption of Mary with a votive chariot that represents the event.

Since 1900, the Varia has had several awards, including the cover of an issue of La Domenica del Corriere, a postage stamp produced by Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato and combined with a national lottery.

The event has been the subject of documentaries and profiles broadcast on Rai 3 (2009) and Rete 4 (2006), as well as live broadcasts on local stations and satellite.

Photo gallery

File:Icona Madonna della Sacra Lettera di Palmi.jpg|The icon of Our Lady of the Sacred Letter File:Reliquario nella teca.jpg|The Shrine of the Sacred hair File:Varia di Palmi del 1938.png|The Varia di Palmi 1938 File:Varia di Palmi 2013 - 001.jpg|The Varia di Palmi 2013 File:Varia di Palmi 2013 - 003.jpg|The Varia di Palmi 2013 File:Varia di Palmi 2013 - 004.jpg|The Varia di Palmi 2013 File:Varia di Palmi 2013 - 002.jpg|The Varia Palmi 2013 arrival in the square File:Varia in piazza 2013.jpg|The Varia Palmi 2013 arrival in the square

References

Giuseppe Maria Viscardi e Paule Lerou, Popular piety in Italy, Calabria Volume I, ed. Letouzey & Ané, Paris 1996.
Lovecchio Francesco, The Varia – history and tradition, ed. GolemSoftware, 2000 –

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

palmi italian-traditions festivals-in-italy tourist-attractions-in-italy catholic-devotions masterpieces-of-the-oral-and-intangible-heritage-of-humanity

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