Assisi Festivals

Assisi’s ecclesiastical enthusiasm is contagious during church holidays, as all of Assisi’s religious festivals are steeped in tradition. Holy Week commences on Palm Sunday with elaborate services, ushering in a week’s worth of prayer and piety in the town. A play reenacts the Deposition from the Cross on Holy Thursday, and traditional torch-lit processions, virtually unchanged since medieval times (except for the camera flashes), trail through town on Good Friday. Vigils are held on Holy Saturday and grand masses of celebration take place in churches throughout town on Easter Sunday. Assisi welcomes spring with the Festa di Calendimaggio (1st Th-Sa of May). A queen is chosen and dubbed Primavera (Spring), while the upper and lower quarters of the city compete in a musical tournament. Ladies and knights overtake the streets in celebration of the young St. Francis, who wandered the streets of Assisi singing serenades at night. According to legend it was on one such night that he encountered a vision of the Madonna della Povertà (Lady of Poverty). October 4 marks the Festa di San Francesco, which kicks off in Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli, the site of St. Francis’s death. Aside from various religious ceremonies, the highlight of this celebration is the offering of oil for the cathedral’s votive lamp. Each year a different region of Italy, whose traditional dances and songs are performed during the festival, offers the oil. In addition to these festivals, classical music concerts and organ recitals occur once or twice each week from April to October in various churches.