OGNI7ANNI
Blood is their argument
by Marino Niola
Ce qu’il y a de plus profond dans l’être humain, c’est la peau.
Paul Valéry
Every seven years, in Guardia Sanframondi, a small town 70 kilometers from Naples, and situated among the mountains of the Southern Appennines between Campania and Molise, the entire community performs a week-long, centuries-old mea culpa ritual that involves thousands of people in the name of “Madonna Assunta.”
The object of this ritual of repentance, which draws thousands of emigrants, onlookers, and enthusiasts from all over the world, is the Holy Virgin. This event, one of the most spectacular in the western world, reaches its emotional climax when the blood stains the white tunics of the self-beaters. These are the hooded figures who have made a vow to the Madonna to beat their chests until they bleed, with a spugnetta, or “sponge”: a disk of cork embedded with 33 sharp needles.
It is easy to see how the phenomenon ends up attracting— if a bit morbidly—a large crowd, which literally explodes in this town of five thousand people. In August 2003, the last time this event took place, more than 100,000 spectators besieged this ancient village.
Over a thousand self-beaters take part, dressed in the traditional white tunic, faces hidden by a white hood. They pass by, beating their chests in a never-ending procession that makes the whole village scenery sacred.
In reality, all of the town’s population is in repentance. The self-beaters are joined by the flagellants, who are also called disciplinati, or “disciplined,” because they punish themselves by whipping their shoulders with the disciplina, a medieval instrument made of a triangle hung with three long, heavy iron chains. The passage of these mysterious figures is announced by the unnerving tinkling of the disciplines, its rhythm formed by the alternating beats between one shoulder and the other. In addition to the other 2000 disciplinati, representing the four districts of the village, the Misteri, or “mysteries” arrive, living paintings played by Guardiesi of all ages. Biblical stories, such as the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden are acted out, as are the roles of Giuditta and Oloferne, played by attractive women in sexy costumes, an various other stories of religious and civic passion.
These latter include such tableux as: the killing of Monsignor Romero, Archbishop of Salvador, who was assassinated by the death army; the heroism of Salvo D’Acquisto, the Italian carabiniere who sacrificed his life to save innocent people from the Nazis. More than 3000 people of every age take part in the mysteries, dressed in luxurious costumes rented from Cinecitta.
Among the self-beaters, disciplinati, and Misteri, 5000 people—that is, the whole village— participate in this grand performance, in which the extraordinary theatricality does not diminish the intensity of the religious faith nor the civic passion.
The rite is nothing but a huge ritual of identity, through which the community forcefully reaffirms the strong bond of identity, symbolized by the Assunta. It is not by chance that this tradition calls to thousands of emigrants, from Australia, Canada, Venezuela, the United States, Brazil. These emigrants often return to the village of their fathers just to fulfill their secret vow. In this way, the businessman from Melbourne, the fazendero from Caracas, the web designer from San Francisco, all wear the white hood to recite, together with their brothers from Guardia, an impressive, collective, mea culpa.
The rite reaches its climax when, on Sunday, early in the morning, the self-beaters still in their everyday clothing, so as not to be recognized, join in the chapel of the “Sparse Blood,” where they wear the white habit of repentance and, having covered their face with the hood, they prepare themselves for the trial that awaits them.
The moment arrives when the mystery called “San Girolamo Repentant,” the patron of the self-beaters, passes in front of the door of the chapel. In that same moment, the mysterious chief yells his command: “With faith and courage, brothers, in the name of Assunta, beat yourselves.” The theater of blood begins.
The hooded thousand answer by beating their chests three times in unison, with a synchronicity that produces a deep rumble, as if from an enormous drum. The blood already staining the white of their tunics, the self-beaters rush out of the church and travel in procession up the small, intricate streets of the town. The sponges rhythmically hit the chests of the hooded self-beaters, while assistants, wearing crowns of thorns, wet the wounds with wine for relief. The meeting between the white-clothed rank of the repentants and the Madonna happens as if by mastery of unmistakable direction, at the center of the village, between the medieval castle and the fountain under the elm tree. This is one of the most touching moments of the day. In front of the Virgin, as if they were moved by a long wave, the white figures fall on their knees, one after the other, while they beat themselves even more fiercely.
The meeting with the “Big Mother” signals the arrival of the final part of the ritual. One by one, the self-beaters leave the rank, disappearing into the labyrinth of streets. They will return to the procession only later, unrecognizable. According to legend, once they have passed this trial, the wounds disappear magically. It is difficult to know how many self-beaters are in that sea of crying men, who take the Assunta back into the obscurity of the church to wait out another seven years, like an ancient goddess of vegetation—a Christian Persephone.
In this archaic and solemn sequence of events, a ceremony suspended between a ritual of initiation and a peasant funeral, there is a thread that connects the past and present of these men who rewrite, in letters of blood, their communal pact. Under the curious eyes of the global village, the self-beaters literally carve their town in corpo. In these times of reborn identities and resurrection of tradition, their shared ritual represents an exemplary case of extreme ‘glocalism’.
It is exactly this postmodern embodiment of modernity in archaism and return that Francesca Magnani succeeds in revealing with her photographs. With the irreverent curiosity of a flâneuse, she brings to the surface the complexity of multiple presences and meanings that make the rite of Guardia–and the rite in general—and opera aperta, an open opera. It is a kind of work that unveils in its performative substance its ambiguous nature. The image of a girl divided between her costume and her smile-liturgic seriousness and the irony of Commedia dell’Arte-against a background of men with covered faces is a perfect symbol of the effects of this work. The allusion to this reversal is the emblem of the roving gaze of Francesca Magnani, who seems willing to hide behind the girl in the photograph, and hints that the truth of the image is always enigmatic, double. Because the act of documenting, as Agnés Varda has said, is above all documentir.
by Marino Niola
Ce qu’il y a de plus profond dans l’être humain, c’est la peau.
Paul Valéry
Every seven years, in Guardia Sanframondi, a small town 70 kilometers from Naples, and situated among the mountains of the Southern Appennines between Campania and Molise, the entire community performs a week-long, centuries-old mea culpa ritual that involves thousands of people in the name of “Madonna Assunta.”
The object of this ritual of repentance, which draws thousands of emigrants, onlookers, and enthusiasts from all over the world, is the Holy Virgin. This event, one of the most spectacular in the western world, reaches its emotional climax when the blood stains the white tunics of the self-beaters. These are the hooded figures who have made a vow to the Madonna to beat their chests until they bleed, with a spugnetta, or “sponge”: a disk of cork embedded with 33 sharp needles.
It is easy to see how the phenomenon ends up attracting— if a bit morbidly—a large crowd, which literally explodes in this town of five thousand people. In August 2003, the last time this event took place, more than 100,000 spectators besieged this ancient village.
Over a thousand self-beaters take part, dressed in the traditional white tunic, faces hidden by a white hood. They pass by, beating their chests in a never-ending procession that makes the whole village scenery sacred.
In reality, all of the town’s population is in repentance. The self-beaters are joined by the flagellants, who are also called disciplinati, or “disciplined,” because they punish themselves by whipping their shoulders with the disciplina, a medieval instrument made of a triangle hung with three long, heavy iron chains. The passage of these mysterious figures is announced by the unnerving tinkling of the disciplines, its rhythm formed by the alternating beats between one shoulder and the other. In addition to the other 2000 disciplinati, representing the four districts of the village, the Misteri, or “mysteries” arrive, living paintings played by Guardiesi of all ages. Biblical stories, such as the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden are acted out, as are the roles of Giuditta and Oloferne, played by attractive women in sexy costumes, an various other stories of religious and civic passion.
These latter include such tableux as: the killing of Monsignor Romero, Archbishop of Salvador, who was assassinated by the death army; the heroism of Salvo D’Acquisto, the Italian carabiniere who sacrificed his life to save innocent people from the Nazis. More than 3000 people of every age take part in the mysteries, dressed in luxurious costumes rented from Cinecitta.
Among the self-beaters, disciplinati, and Misteri, 5000 people—that is, the whole village— participate in this grand performance, in which the extraordinary theatricality does not diminish the intensity of the religious faith nor the civic passion.
The rite is nothing but a huge ritual of identity, through which the community forcefully reaffirms the strong bond of identity, symbolized by the Assunta. It is not by chance that this tradition calls to thousands of emigrants, from Australia, Canada, Venezuela, the United States, Brazil. These emigrants often return to the village of their fathers just to fulfill their secret vow. In this way, the businessman from Melbourne, the fazendero from Caracas, the web designer from San Francisco, all wear the white hood to recite, together with their brothers from Guardia, an impressive, collective, mea culpa.
The rite reaches its climax when, on Sunday, early in the morning, the self-beaters still in their everyday clothing, so as not to be recognized, join in the chapel of the “Sparse Blood,” where they wear the white habit of repentance and, having covered their face with the hood, they prepare themselves for the trial that awaits them.
The moment arrives when the mystery called “San Girolamo Repentant,” the patron of the self-beaters, passes in front of the door of the chapel. In that same moment, the mysterious chief yells his command: “With faith and courage, brothers, in the name of Assunta, beat yourselves.” The theater of blood begins.
The hooded thousand answer by beating their chests three times in unison, with a synchronicity that produces a deep rumble, as if from an enormous drum. The blood already staining the white of their tunics, the self-beaters rush out of the church and travel in procession up the small, intricate streets of the town. The sponges rhythmically hit the chests of the hooded self-beaters, while assistants, wearing crowns of thorns, wet the wounds with wine for relief. The meeting between the white-clothed rank of the repentants and the Madonna happens as if by mastery of unmistakable direction, at the center of the village, between the medieval castle and the fountain under the elm tree. This is one of the most touching moments of the day. In front of the Virgin, as if they were moved by a long wave, the white figures fall on their knees, one after the other, while they beat themselves even more fiercely.
The meeting with the “Big Mother” signals the arrival of the final part of the ritual. One by one, the self-beaters leave the rank, disappearing into the labyrinth of streets. They will return to the procession only later, unrecognizable. According to legend, once they have passed this trial, the wounds disappear magically. It is difficult to know how many self-beaters are in that sea of crying men, who take the Assunta back into the obscurity of the church to wait out another seven years, like an ancient goddess of vegetation—a Christian Persephone.
In this archaic and solemn sequence of events, a ceremony suspended between a ritual of initiation and a peasant funeral, there is a thread that connects the past and present of these men who rewrite, in letters of blood, their communal pact. Under the curious eyes of the global village, the self-beaters literally carve their town in corpo. In these times of reborn identities and resurrection of tradition, their shared ritual represents an exemplary case of extreme ‘glocalism’.
It is exactly this postmodern embodiment of modernity in archaism and return that Francesca Magnani succeeds in revealing with her photographs. With the irreverent curiosity of a flâneuse, she brings to the surface the complexity of multiple presences and meanings that make the rite of Guardia–and the rite in general—and opera aperta, an open opera. It is a kind of work that unveils in its performative substance its ambiguous nature. The image of a girl divided between her costume and her smile-liturgic seriousness and the irony of Commedia dell’Arte-against a background of men with covered faces is a perfect symbol of the effects of this work. The allusion to this reversal is the emblem of the roving gaze of Francesca Magnani, who seems willing to hide behind the girl in the photograph, and hints that the truth of the image is always enigmatic, double. Because the act of documenting, as Agnés Varda has said, is above all documentir.
