Feast of Our Lady. Procession of the spunziatrici - Castelvetere sul Calore (AV)

APRIL 28TH

In Castelvetere sul Calore, the patronal festival in honor of the Madonna delle Grazie (Our Lady of Grace) is celebrated on April 28. The celebration opens with the procession of the “spunziatrici” (dispensers), girls of about eight years old dressed in white and adorned with gold jewels (in emulation of the statue of the Madonna delle Grazie), who dispense the blessed tortani (taralli, a kind of biscuit-like bread)
contained in wicker baskets) in all the houses of the village. The spunziatrici are accompanied by a knight equipped with a stick, and
a godmother.

The preparations linked to the celebration involve the entire community and begin in mid-March, when the inhabitants of Castelvetere go to the mountains to collect the wood that will be used to cook the tortani. In the following days, the members of the Festival Committee deal with the alms to collect the money needed to purchase the flour. Two weeks before the festival the bread-making begins: every evening the women prepare the dough and let it rise, and the following day they work it to shape the tortani. Approximately 50,000 tortani are made in 12 days. These are then taken to the Church of San Lorenzo and arranged to form an altar.

On April 25th people go up to the mountains to collect the flowers called “Madonna lilies”, which will be used to embellish the throne on which the statue of the Madonna is placed. The statue is kept in a shrine and is only shown on holidays. On April 28th, after the religious procession, the spunzatrici walk around the countryside of the surrounding villages to distribute the Tortani, followed by the population of Castelvetere. The Festival of April 28th is linked to the thousand-year-old legend according to which, around the year 1000, the Madonna appeared in a dream to an old lady in the village, whom she asked to go to the parish priest to tell him to build a church dedicated to her. The old lady was not believed, and the Madonna reappeared to her saying that she would put snow in the place where she wanted her chapel. It was the morning of April 28th when snow was found in the small square where the Temple of the Miracle stands which, since 1992, has been a Diocesan Sanctuary.

Starting from 1562, the “miracle of the snow” joined the tradition of the distribution of blessed bread, begun following the donation of a devotee who had bequeathed two forests and a piece of arable land, establishing that the harvest was to be donated to the poor on April 28th. This cultural tradition is practiced by the entire community: by the girls, who wear the clothes of the dispensers; by the children, who participate in the preparations alongside the adults; by the men, involved in organizing and carrying out the festival; by women, who play a fundamental role as they are involved in the preparation of the tortani and in sewing the girls’ clothes.

The collective practice of this cultural heritage makes it possible, at the same time, to transmit the skills connected to it to the younger generations, skills ranging from singing to baking, up to tailoring. The Festival has a very strong identity value: the Castelvetere community that settled in Chatham, Canada, recreated a statue of the Madonna delle Grazie in 1968; every April 28th, the ritual practice of the distribution of the Tortani is repeated, also in Canada.