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 church of the Immacolata Concezione, which sits on a windy precipice on a north eastern promitory 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 grottoes and old

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 Lucia

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 Immaccolata Concezione's 300th Anniversary' mounted in the Casa del Eca

Non vogliamo emigrare...1970's anarchic sentiments of a populus 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