Matera’s Festa della Madonna Bruna: in early July a sparkling fest

Matera’s Festa della Madonna Bruna is on
July 2nd and it is a spectacular fireworks spectacle.

This pearl is located in Italy’s Basilicata region and Matera has a special celebration on the second of July called the Festa della Madonna Bruna, one of the most interesting summer festivals in Italy. The town was pretty famous all around the world for its sassi.

They are very peculiar buildings, builded up inside the rock. White rocks all over where the peasants use to get to defende themselves from the hot sun, and where also the cattle did find a useful shed. Wheater in Basilicata can be very very warm and lovely!  Eating here is another discovery that you must try out! Pasta, pizza and particular dessert like biscotti, bread which is coming directly from the farmer table as usual in southern Italy.

This town where Pasolini directed  “Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo”, a masterpiece of Italian Cinema back in the ’70, shows us its own beauty throughout this festival: the streets are going to be decorated with festive lights, the”sassi will see then the parade of costumed men on horses called the Knights of Santa Maria della Bruna. Then in the night a float will come by. Created out of paper maché by local artisans,  it will make the whole route through the town.

Also a fake fight opposing guard and youth will displayed. The youth, representing rebirth, had to fight agais the old, established status quo. The devotion to the brown Madonna is not uncommon in the south of Italy, though.
Fireworks in Matera are really a big show to see.  The Festa of the brown Madonna will be in Matera and among the other things

The best Italian living Nativity scenes

Living nativity scenes are pretty famous in Italy and they are called presepi viventi: they are made of costumed people acting out the parts of the nativity. For example, Chia, near Soriano, shows a large living nativity on December 26 with more than 500 participants!

Often living nativity scenes stay on for several days, usually Christmas Day and December 26, and sometimes around January 6, when the three Wise Men gave Jesus their gifts. Let’s go around Italy and discover a bunch of towns that reenact the Nativity scene!

Milan has an Epiphany Parade of the Three Kings from the Duomo to the church of Sant’Eustorgio on January 6.

Barga is a beautiful medieval town in northern Tuscany with a living nativity and Christmas pagaent on December 23.Equi Terme, in the Lunigiana region of Tuscany, has a reenactment of the nativity that takes place throughout the village.

In Liguria the living nativity scenes can be seen in the towns of Calizzano, Roccavignale, and Diano Arentino during the period of December.

Vetralla, in the northern Lazio region, has the oldest living nativity in the region.

In the South of Italy? Custonaci, a small town near Trapani, in Sicily, has a beautiful nativity scene re-enacted inside a cave.  Rivisondoli, in the Abruzzo region has a reenactment for the arrival of the 3 Kings on January 5 with hundreds of participants. Rivisondoli also presents a living nativity December 24 and 25. L’Aquila and Scanno also in the Abruzzo region have living nativities on Christmas Day.