SANT'ANTONIO PROCESSION
On the first Sunday of May Sorrento celebrates Sant’Antonino
with a procession led by the silver statue portraying him.
EASTER PROCESSIONS
During Easter period, there are two processions in Sorrento:
the white procession that takes place during the night between
Holy Thursday and Good Friday. The members of the archconfraternity
of Santa Monica participate to the procession all dressed in
white and wearing white hoods, too. White is the colour of Our
Lady that is looking for her child. The night of Good Friday
the same people are all dressed in black, with back hoods: they
mourn for the death of Jesus Christ.
PALMS MADE OF SUGARED ALMONDS
This is a typical tradition of SorrentoCoast: palms made of
sugared almonds are blessed together with natural palms during
Palm Sunday Mass, when Christians recalls the triumph of Jesus
entering Jerusalem. Women of Sorrento make these palms using
sugared almonds. The palms are then blessed and eaten. This tradition
is very ancient: it was probably brought by a Saracen woman that
donated this kind of palm to a local angler during one of the
sieges by pirates. There are two versions of the story: during
one of the sieges by pirates, the inhabitants of Sorrento prayed
Sant'Antonino asking him to free them from pirates. The saint
helped them and the pirates shipwrecked. Only a woman, a slave
of the pirates, did not die. She was welcomed and helped by inhabitants
of Sorrento and she donated sugared almonds to thank them. Another
version of this story tells that during a Saracen siege, ships
shipwrecked because of a storm and a girl arrived to the coast
and was captured. But she was not killed. To thank the population
that had saver her life, she donated sugared almonds to a local
angler.
The storm that caused the shipwreck is mentioned in some
documents in Salerno and Amalfi. According the tale known in
Salerno, the Saracen pirate Redbeard in 1544 arrived to Salerno
with many ships. Other ships continued to Amalfi. The inhabitants
of Salerno prayed their patron, Saint Matthew, while the inhabitants
of Amalfi prayed their patron, Saint Andrew. Suddenly a storm
hit the Saracen ships, that shipwrecked.
Ettore Panella |
