AFFRONTATA. - An episode that characterizes many processions of Holy Week, especially in the regions of central-southern Italy. While from one church, with a part of the procession, the statue of the dead Christ emerges, supported in the arms of the faithful, another statue, depicting the Sorrowful Mother, sets out in turn from another church and is carried through the streets of the town to simulate the search that the Holy Mother makes for her Son. At a certain point the two statues meet, amid the most intense manifestations of religious fervor on the part of all the people: this meeting is called, in various places, precisely the affrontata, or confronto, or also giunta. Similar episodes are also found in processions taking place on other feast days. In certain places, at the moment of the meeting, doves, sparrows, and swallows are released.

Bibliography

BIBL.: F. Montalto, La Settimana Santa e la processione detta 'l'affrontata' in Laureana di Borrello (Reggio Calabria), in Archivio per la raccolta e lo studio delle tradizioni popolari italiane, 16 (1941), pp. 11-17.

Paolo Toschi

@incollection{ec1_affrontata, author = {Toschi, Paolo}, title = {Affrontata}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {374}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/affrontata} }

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