Christian observance in Ruvo di Puglia, Italy
The rites of Holy Week in Ruvo di Puglia constitute the main event held in the Apulian town. The folklore and sacred or profane traditions, typical of the Ruvestine tradition, are a great attraction for tourists from neighboring towns and the rest of Italy, and have been included by IDEA among Italy's intangible heritage events.
The rites begin on Passion Friday, preceding Palm Sunday, with the procession of the Desolate. Maundy Thursday is marked by the evocative night procession of the Eight Saints, while Good Friday is the turn of the mysteries. The procession of the Pieta on Holy Saturday concludes the penitential rites, while on Easter Sunday the procession of the Risen Jesus ends Holy Week. All rites end on Easter Monday with the procession of the Virgin of the Annunciation in the village of Calendano.
History.
The confraternities in Ruvo.
Evidence of the existence of early Ruvestine confraternities can be obtained from the polyptych, a Byzantine work initialed Z. T., depicting the Madonna and Child and brethren, in which appears the inscription "Hoc opus fieri fec(e)runt, confratres san(c)ti Cleti, anno salut(i)s 1537" and preserved in the Purgatory church, in the left aisle, the one dedicated to St. Cletus.
The establishment of the Ruvestine confraternities was in the period of the Counter-Reformation, and at present there are only four sodalities still active. As reported by the polyptych, the earliest known confraternity is the Brotherhood of St. Cletus, whose praying brethren are depicted in the very painting dressed in white sackcloth and hooded. In the same period, Ruvo saw the establishment of the confraternity of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in the former Church of the Rosary, now St. Dominic's, by the Dominican fathers.
Other ancient and no longer active confraternities include the confraternity of the Conception and the confraternity dedicated to the Mount of Piety, which carried out charitable and welfare activities. Dated 1543 is the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament founded in the co-cathedral of Ruvo di Puglia, whose confraternity members wore a purple habit and dedicated themselves to the care of the sick and the provision of dowries for two poor girls. Among these early confraternities, special mention must be made of the sodality dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo, now no longer in existence, which played a very prominent role in Ruvestine society. This was followed, in chronological order, by the four active confraternities involved in Holy Week: confraternity of St. Roch (1576), archconfraternity of Carmine (1604), confraternity of Purgatory (1678) and confraternity Purification-Addolorata (1777).
The four confraternities.
The summary diagram summarizes the main features of the four still active confraternities, listed in order of age. The coats of arms of the four confraternities are superimposed on a field representing the dress of the brethren.
Confraternity Opera Pia San Rocco.
With the dissolution of the Confraternity of St. Charles Borromeo in the late 16th century, the Confraternity Opera Pia San Rocco can be considered to all intents and purposes the oldest sodality still in activity in Ruvo. The origins of the cult of St. Roch are surely the result of Venetian influence, which ruled the Adriatic Sea in the 1500s, but also of popular devotion: in 1502 the city of Ruvo was afflicted by a terrible pestilence, probably caused by the continuous clashes between the French and Spanish occupiers that resulted in the Challenge of Barletta.
St. Roch is said to have appeared in the guise of a wayfarer to both the first magistrate and the bishop of the then diocese of Ruvo, inviting them to pray. A short time later the plague ended and as a sign of devotion in 1503 the townspeople erected a small church in his honor. According to legend, in the same church of St. Roch, the thirteen Frenchmen led by Guy la Motte, stationed in Ruvo, allegedly stayed overnight and attended holy mass before leaving for Barletta for the challenge. The confraternity was founded on October 28, 1576, as evidenced by the two wall inscriptions, one on the architrave of the entrance and one inside the church: it was Pope Gregory XIII who granted indulgences to the "confreres of Saint Roch of Ruvo." The social background of the brethren of St. Roch was undoubtedly humble, and in fact the forty brethren who signed the founding act of the congregation did so using a cross; they were illiterate peasants. The sodality was described as poor in Bishop Gaspare Pasquali's 1593 report, so much so that the brethren lived on alms even to meet the expenses of restoring and decorating the church. The "relationes ad limina" (i.e., a report regarding the state of the diocese) of Bishops Saluzio, Memmoli, Caro, Alitto and Morgione infer the dissolution of the confraternity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, caused by a lack of funds that led to the silent and gradual demise of the sodality. On August 8, 1781, King Ferdinand IV signed the request for Royal Assent to the new confraternal statute, thus sanctioning the rebirth of the congregation. The new statute provided for assistance among the brethren themselves and the establishment of the Mount of St. Roch. 
The small church of St. Roch began to be enriched with works of art commissioned by the brethren themselves, such as the 17th-century wooden statue of St. Roch, housed in the main niche above the altar; the oil painting, from the Neapolitan school, depicting Our Lady of Good Counsel, kept in a shrine displayed in the church; the silver statue of St. Roch by Giuseppe Sanmartino from 1793, kept in the cathedral, among other things displayed during the Covid-19 emergency in 2020, to invoke the saint's intercession and appease the pandemic. On March 16, 1919, the confraternity of St. Roch decided to provide itself with a simulacrum to be paraded during Holy Week: the task was assigned to the Lecce papier-mâché master Raffaele Caretta, who was inspired by Antonio Ciseri's 1883 painting "The Transport of Christ to the Sepulcher". The simulacrum fully and dramatically depicts the same characters as in Ciseri's work; leading the group and supporting the shroud in which Jesus' lifeless body is wrapped are Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus in front and St. John supporting the sheet behind Christ; completing the group are Mary of Clopas, who holds an almost fainting Mary, Salome and a penitent Mary of Magdala. The statuary group made its debut on April 17, 1920, and first crossed the threshold of the church of San Rocco in the late afternoon; the same scene is still repeated today with Pancaldi's Eternal Sorrow funeral march that begins the procession, moved since 1921 to the usual night time of 2:30 a.m. In 2020, the processional rite was not held, due to the Covid-19 emergency, despite the 100th anniversary of the simulacrum.
Archconfraternity of Carmine.
The archconfraternity of Carmine contrasts with the modesty of the confraternity of San Rocco. Founded on May 15, 1604 on behalf of clergymen and noblemen, after Bishop Gaspare Pasquali had approved the confraternity's statute, it soon became the most wealthy and influential in the Ruvo scene: one-third of the original 141 confraternity members were clergymen. The fledgling confraternity found its headquarters in the church of Saint Vitus, entrusted on the condition that the brotherhood would engage in its restoration: the same church, once the renovation was completed, was named after Our Lady of Mount Carmel, titular of the archconfraternity of the same name. The original statutes stipulated that the rector delegated to two brethren the task of visiting the prisoners, assisting the sick and collecting alms every Thursday.
During harvest periods, a couple of brethren would roam the Ruvestine countryside in search of provisions to store for the winter and which would flow into the Monte di Pietà. In 1690 the notary Carlo Barese designated the archconfraternity of Carmine as the universal heir of his wealth upon the death of his two sons, priests Alessandro and Nicolò, replenishing the coffers of the sodality. In the seventeenth century, the brethren decided to equip themselves with wooden simulacra representing the sacred mysteries and to be paraded on Good Friday. The newly restored church took the name Carmelite Church for two reasons: there is a fresco, representing Our Lady of Mount Carmel, on the vault of the church and also the Carmelite bishop Sebastiano D'Alessandro was buried there. Despite this, signs of the cult of Saint Vitus are still visible, as evidenced by the painting depicting Saint Vitus between Saints Modestus and Crescentia.
A burial ground was reserved in the church for the brethren and there were also tombs of Ruvestine nobles, including Luca Cuvilli and Antonio Miraglia. Records of the procession of the mysteries date back to the 17th century, but the history of the now traditional Good Friday procession suffered a moment of crisis in the mid-20th century: from the original number of 13 statues and sacred vestments, the procession saw the number of simulacra decrease first to 10 and then to 8, with the removal of the statues of St. Peter, St. John and Veronica, then abruptly from 8 to 4 due to the lack of bearers. It is only since the 1980s that the Archconfraternity of Mount Carmel has been engaged in reintegrating 4 more statues into the procession, bringing the total number to 8 (Jesus in the Garden, Jesus at the Pillar, Ecce Homo, Jesus at Calvary, Jesus Crucified, Dead Jesus, Mary of Sorrows, and the Holy Wood). In 2018, the simulacrum of Veronica was also reintroduced into the processional rite, with the intention of bringing the number of statues in the procession back to 11. In 2020, the processional rite was not held, due to the Covid-19 emergency.
Confraternity of Purgatory under the title of “Mary Most Holy of the Suffrage”.
The Confraternity of Purgatory can be considered to all intents and purposes the main heir of the first known Ruvestine confraternity, the Confraternity of San Cleto. St. Cletus, according to popular legend, is said to have been appointed the first bishop of Ruvo by St. Peter himself, who stopped at the Ruvestine “station” on the Appian Way; later, in 80 A.D., Cletus or Anacletus was elected third pope, and after his death, he was immediately venerated by the Ruvestine people, who elevated him to the status of town patron. His ancient cult is also evidenced by the limestone statue depicting Saint Cletus in the Roman-era cistern in the basement of the Purgatory Church.
As the centuries passed and the city developed, the church of Our Lady of Suffrage was built above the cave of St. Cletus, which constituted a true center of worship. The building, dating from the 1500s, saw the rise of the confraternity of San Cleto, as evidenced by the aforementioned polyptych dated 1537. In the early seventeenth century the Ruvestine noblewoman Elisabetta Zazzarino expressed the desire to build a small church dedicated to the Souls in Purgatory. Thus a second nave centered on the worship of the Purgatory Souls was added to the Suffrage Church. The new church, complete with two naves, was first named after St. Michael the Archangel and only a few years later was renamed, as it is called today, Purgatory Church. On August 27, 1678, the bishop of Ruvo, Domenico Galesio, founded the confraternity of Mary Most Holy of the Suffrage of Purgatory by aggregating it with the archconfraternity of the Suffrage of Rome.
The new confraternity was also immediately the object of attention from the noble families of Ruvo, whose bequests contributed to the establishment of as many as three charitable Mounts: the Mount Purgatory, Mount Leone and Mount San Cleto. The Mount of the Dead was immediately established thanks to the alms that the faithful contributed in order to receive as many memorial masses as the sums of money they contributed. The confraternity provided for the care of the poor, the sick and widows and the establishment of dowries for poor maidens. The sodality received Royal Assent from Ferdinand IV in 1766. During this period the church was provided with works of art, such as the canvas depicting Our Lady of Suffrage among the Purgatory Souls by Carlo Plantamura, vestments as well as silverware and sacred jewelry. In 1898, owing to the alms collected, the brethren and sisters purchased the simulacrum of the Pieta made by Lecce papier-mâché master Giuseppe Manzo; it is from that year