Temperanza e Prudenza

Prudence, close companion to wisdom. Temperance, the art of leading.

I found these two 17th century guache paintings from the Divine Mysteries gracing a wall down in the crypt of the Chiesa del L'Immacolata Concezione which sits on a windy precipice on a southwestern promontory of Calitri. 

They were salvaged in the days or weeks following the 1980 earthquake that all but destroyed the original early 17th century structure. Every year at Christmas the ProLoco hosts a regional 'Presepiando' or Neopolitan cresch exhibit in the halls of the crypt. 

Artists participate from towns all around Alta Irpinia Campania and Bascilicata with their creative interpretations of The Feast of the Holy Family, while in the streets above, the town hosts their annual 'Presepe Viventi' on December 26th with live manger and 18th century village scenes played out in stone grottos and houses all around the Centro Storico.

Auguri di Santa Lucia

Auguri di Santa Lucia December 13th

These images are of the late August procession honouring Santa Luci select young women carry her dias from the little chiesetta just outside of town on the hill overlooking the Valle Ofanto up into the old village and back again - was a beautiful summer's afternoon.

Non vogliamo emigrare

the 30th anniversary of the November 23, 1980 earthquake in Alta Irpinia, Italy was commemorated with two major photography exhibits in Calitri

Photo-journalist Vito Galgano's images of the procession of Venerdi Santo among the ruins in Calitri cover the first and successive years after the earthquake - the exhibit was sponsored by the 'Confraternity Immacolata Concezione's 300th Anniversary' mounted in the Casa del xEca

Non vogliamo emigrare...1970's anarchic sentiments of a populace no longer willing to leave their villages...

Photographer Vito Galgano worked with Mimmo Jodice in the 1970's & 1980's now teaches in Calitri.  

Photo Editor's interested in Vito Galgano's images can email me.