The Flight of the Angel - Gesualdo (AV)

LAST SUNDAY OF AUGUST

The Flight of the Angel is a ritual practice that takes place every year on the last Sunday of August, on the occasion of the celebrations in honor of San Vincenzo Ferreri. After the mass celebrated in the Church of the SS. Rosario (the Holy Rosary), people carry the statue of San Vincenzo Ferreri on their shoulders into the square which is in front of the church, crowded with thousands of people who have come to witness the fight between the Angel and Lucifer.

The celebration represents the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, one depicted by the Archangel Michael and the other by Lucifer. The Archangel Michael is a child who, suspended at a height of about 20 meters with a sturdy steel cable stretched between the walls of the Castle and the Church of the Holy Rosary and accompanied by Strauss’s “Radetzky March”, reaches the center of the main square. The angel condemns the pride and arrogance of his adversary who dared to rebel against God by choosing evil, and urges the population to trust in God and in Saint Vincenzo Ferreri, the miracle-worker and to reject the flatteries of the Devil. Satan, who performs from a stage in the center of the square, boasts of his strength which overturns social rules and moral principles, deceives and confuses the crowd below, proclaiming himself master of the world, of the small village and its inhabitants. The dispute ends with the victory of Saint Michael, with the triumph of “Good” over “Evil”. The angel, retracing his “flight” in reverse and returning “to heaven”, recommends the faithful to the Saint and blesses the cheering people.

The ritual, followed by thousands of people, has a strong emotional impact due to the simplicity of the scenic and verbal language and because it expresses a message of hope, of simple and direct faith, understandable to all, and which well expresses its popular and intense
character.

This element of cultural heritage involves the entire community and, in particular, the child and the adult who play the part of the Archangel and Lucifer respectively, the organizing Committee involved in choosing the actors and creating the event, and the families of the protagonists and organizers. The sacred representation has its roots in the peasant culture of industriousness, tenacity and the spirit of solidarity. The role played by the Angel has not undergone any substantial changes over time, while the role played by Lucifer, accompanied by a rich range of tones and colors, is almost always integrated with current hues, with subtle and biting nuances, concerning scandals and reprehensible acts, which occurred inside and outside the village, of which Satan proclaims himself to be the instigator and author. The state of vitality of the representation is manifested by the great popular participation.

The first documentary reference to this practice dates back to two epistles dated 1841: in the first letter of August 16th, the parish priest Vincenzo Pisapia asks the Diocese of Avellino for authorization to hold the celebration in honor of San Vincenzo Ferreri; with the second letter of August 21st, 1841, the provincial superintendent, with specific reference to the ritual practice of the Flight of the Angel, replies that he is waiting for the “judgment of the Intendant of the province... while in this Subintendency no regulation has been found that prohibits these customary games”.

There is an interesting episode reported in the booklet “Gli Angeli di Gesualdo” (The Angels of Gesualdo), edited by the Pro Loco Civitatis
Gesualdine and published in 2014, which mentions an incident that happened in 1876: during the celebration of the Flight of the Angel, a child who was suspended at quite a height fell onto the trees below, fortunately without suffering any injury, as the ropes made of vegetable substances supporting him had loosened.