“THE FIRST GOOD EVENING WE GIVE YOU”
Itinerant ritual traditions in the Apennines
Seminar
Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 1:30-3:30 PM
Classroom 7
University of Teramo
Department of Communication Sciences
Coste S. Agostino Campus
Via Renato Balzarini 1
Teramo
As part of the Cultural Anthropology course (Prof. Gianfranco Spitilli), a scientific seminar will be led by Marco Magistrali, director of the Research Center and L.A.S.C.I.T.O. (La leggera Archivio Sociale della Cultura Immateriale nella Toscana Orientale), author of numerous researches and publications on the itinerant ritual traditions of the Apennines, between Tuscany and Abruzzo, in particular those linked to the winter period, where the greatest concentration of this specific type of rituals of intercommunity relations and between different contiguous communities is observed. The Apennine societies have in fact developed a vast articulated system of social, cultural and economic exchanges with a strong symbolic value, in differentiated ritual forms, partly shaped by Christianity, responsible for the circulation of cultural forms and contents more widely shared by the entire European continent, located indicatively, as a time span, between the end of October and the beginning of November – in relation to the cult of the dead – until the beginning of May, when the risks inherent in the winter period are now overcome. The seminar will be accompanied by the viewing and listening of audiovisual, photographic and sound materials collected directly in the field during a long and intense research activity carried out since the 1990s, also within the framework of the European Tramontana Network project.