{"id":22,"date":"2019-08-18T15:06:38","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T15:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/?page_id=22"},"modified":"2020-01-03T15:59:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T15:59:42","slug":"fontanarosa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/fontanarosa\/","title":{"rendered":"Fontanarosa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The tirata <\/em>or \u201cpull\u201d, which is repeated\nevery year on August 14th, represents the culminating moment of a ritual path\nstarted by the Fontanarosa community in the previous months, with the harvest\nof wheat, the selection of the best wheat ears and the creation of decorative\nbraids for the covering of the carrettone<\/em>,\nor big carriage, by the Fontanarosa women led by Pasqualino Cappuccio. The carriage\nis the supporting base of the devotional machine which consists of a wooden\nobelisk, 27 or 28 meters high, divided into 8 levels and covered with artistically\nwoven decorative panels made of straw. The last two sections make up the dome\nand are covered by the trunk on which the statue of the Madonna della\nMisericordia rests. The celebrations begin on August 8th with the so called\n\u201clift of the dome\u201d. The rising of the dome is to be done by expert carpenters,\n\u201cflying men\u201d also called \u201crope angels\u201d who move easily through the complex\nwooden framework at over 20 meters high. The structure of the carriage consists\nof 20 wooden poles held together according to medieval carpentry techniques\nwith joints, bolting and tying with hemp ropes that provide elasticity to the\nmachine. The first operation consists in the lift of the central pole which is\nkept in balance by a series of ropes. After this first phase, the main pole is\nin a vertical position and is held in balance by other ropes. Two winches are\nset in motion with a system of levers, pulleys and rollers that slowly raise\nthe dome. When the statue of the Madonna reaches the top of the structure the\nfeast can begin. In the following days the parade of \u201cgregne\u201d is celebrated –\nfrom the Latin ‘gr\u0115m\u012da’ (m), derivative of ‘gremium’, or ‘sheaf’ – and, the\nsheaves of wheat are carried in procession on the head by men and women dressed\nin traditional clothes, coming from the countryside just outside the town, to\nthe rhythm of ancient dances and songs accompanied by the accordion. The expert\ncarpenters then proceed to assemble the float covering with the decorative\nstraw panels and finally, on August 14th, the ritual of the “pull”\ntakes place and the carriage is towed along the main road of the village,\nthanks to the strength of 2 pairs of oxen and the whole community that\nmaneuvers the ropes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nassembly of the festive machine and its decorations are entrusted to the skill\nof expert carpenters and local architects who have handed down the technical\nand artistic secrets from father to son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis not known for certain when the ritual of the tirata<\/em> of Fontanarosa originated, but popular tradition identifies\nthe float as an ex voto of the peasants in honor of the Madonna della\nMisericordia to implore her protection and in order to have a bountiful\nharvest. Even before the advent of Christianity, ritual practices based on the\noffer of wheat to the deities, in particular to the goddess of the harvest\nDemeter\/Ceres, were commonplace throughout the Mediterranean region to promote\nfertility. The form of the first votive machines was likely that of an\nagricultural carriage decorated simply with sheaves of wheat and then, with the\nadvent of Christianity, the same group embraced the patron saints and the\nVirgin Mary and in turn made the machines more and more spectacular. According\nto some sources, the model of the Fontanarosa obelisk machine derives from the\n18th Century models of the festive apparatuses that appeared in Naples under\nthe Spanish viceroyalty, inspired by the architectural model of the Baroque\nobelisk and in particular that of the Immaculate Conception in Piazza del Ges\u00f9\nin Naples. The first version of the carro<\/em>\nis attributable to the \u201capparatus decorator\u201d masters, Generoso and Stanislao\nMartino, who moved from Naples to Fontanarosa in the mid-19th Century. This\nfirst model was then gradually transformed to today’s neo-Gothic form due to\nthe work of Mario Ruzza who elaborated upon various drafts from 1948 to 1972.\n\nThe tradition is handed down to the younger\ngenerations through artisan workshops on the processing and weaving of straw\nthat take place continuously in the former church of San Sebastiano with the\nactive participation of school children.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tirata or \u201cpull\u201d, which is repeated every year on August 14th, represents the culminating moment of a ritual path<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":526,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-22","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1475,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions\/1475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}