In Sorrento the Exhibithion: “Good Friday – sackcloth, cilice, and scapular, genesis of a penitential movement”

The Fondazione Sorrento is pleased to present the exhibition “Good Friday – Sackcloth, cilice, and scapular. Genesis of a penitential movement” from February 24th to March 31st, 2024.

Curated by Massimo Fiorentino, the exhibition in Villa Fiorentino is an opportunity to carefully observe the rituals of Holy Week in Sorrento and its surroundings, through the local Brotherhoods and Archconfraternities.

These lay congregations – through their aggregative forms – continue to bear witness to ancient traditions that find their highest expression in the processions of hooded figures on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Massimo Fiorentino, a great expert of popular traditions in the Sorrento area and Southern Italy, therefore, aims to offer a careful and objective analysis of the rituals of Holy Week on the Sorrento Peninsula.

Thus, the exhibition should not be seen as an exaltation of the mere “folk” character of the processional marches but, rather, as a tangible demonstration of the strong charge of faith and spirituality hidden behind them.

The processions of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, then, are not merely the perpetuation of a tradition but become an ancient and ever-new opportunity to be questioned about the mystery of the figure of Christ.