Itinerary of the traditions and the crafts 1

Time, inevitably, make old rituals weak, but the traditions of the province of Taranto , especially the religious ones, are still animated by the popular fervour.

Here nothing has changed. The cults, overlapped each other over the centuries, have left signs of customs that people of Taranto still keep with love. The friendly inhabitants are all together faithful to the colours and the tastes of this generous land still alive.

In many communities there are important examples of the popular religiosity. The most important ones are the celebrations of Christmas, Easter and the patron saints. Christmas is announced in Taranto by the music of the Citizens' Band. On 22 nd November, Santa Cecilia's day, the patroness of music, for the first time in the whole Christmas time Taranto's inhabitants are waken up by the music of their loved and by the dear songs and odours of the most typical sweets of the celebration: pettole , sanachiutele and cartedate . They are widespread in towns like Grottaglie, Mottola, Martina Franca and Laterza. In Crispiano, in the carsick caves called “del Vallone” on 24 th and 26 th December is performed a very famous living crib. There is a faithful performance of the original and ancient background that characterized the birth of Christ in Betlemme. On the Epiphany day there also is the coming of the Magi. All the characters are real persons less than in the days between Christmas and Epiphany. Even in Laterza there is a living crib in a rocky rave in the historical part of the town. Instead in Taranto , and in almost all the towns of the province, there are various cribs of different materials and sizes that keep faith to this tradition of the South of Italy.

In Easter the Holy Week is lived with particular religious piety thanks to many processions that remind of the Passion of Our Lord. The most famous one is the Passio Christi in Ginosa that has three hundreds characters performing in the natural background of the Casale ravine.

The traditions of Taranto , such as the two Addolorata's processions and the one of the Mysteries, are so attractive that every year hundreds of tourists come from every part of Italy and Europe .

Processions of Iberian origin – such as the ones performed in Seville, Valladolid and Zamore – are also diffused in other towns of the South of Italy and started at the beginning of the XVIII century when such a religious noble from Taranto, Don Diego Calò, made built two statues of Our Died Lord and Our Lady just to make them show during a procession on the Holy Friday in Naples. People were so convinced that this rite helped their city to come out from its social diseases. All the year the two statues were exposed in the chapel of Calò's palace, close to the nowadays via Duomo. Calò's sons went on with this rite and when in 1765 Francesco Antonio Calò did not managed to do it anymore, he gave the statues to the Confraternita dell'Addolorata e del Carmine, just to make sure that the tradition could be continued.

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