The Good Friday Procession
On Friday, April 18th 2025, the Good Friday Procession will return to Savona: an event of faith and devotion.
It is the most heartfelt moment for the people of Savona and the oldest and most evocative event in the city. It is also an unmissable opportunity to better explore the city, with its historic centre, the new waterfront, Via Paleocapa and Via Pia, and the Torretta. The Good Friday Procession in Savona takes on unique and distinctive features, offering an incredible spectacle of religiosity and art.
The Good Friday Procession and the Confraternities
It is the six confraternities that give life and soul to the grand celebration: Nostra Signora di Castello, Cristo Risorto, Santi Pietro e Caterina, Santi Agostino e Monica, SS. Trinità, and Santi Giovanni Battista, Giovanni Evangelista e Petronilla. These confraternities already existed at the end of the 13th century, when the ceremony began to take place through the streets of the city centre. Even the Madonna, on 8 April 1536, appeared, urging the people of Savona to continue the ancient devotional rite.
The Origins of the Procession
The procession has its origins in the medieval tradition of public flagellations (the discipline). Accompanied by processions and songs (the lauds), these represented the first manifestations of groups of flagellants. Around the mid-17th century, the confraternities adopted the wooden groups depicting the mysteries of the Passion, which from then on became one of the symbols of the event. Already in the 18th century, chronicles tell of confreres carrying the heavy wooden groups (the “casse”) on their shoulders through the ancient alleyways, singing litanies and psalms.
Grand Artists and Sculptors
Among the great artists and sculptors were the Genoese Francesco Torre and, above all, Anton Maria Maragliano, followed by the Savonese Filippo Martinengo, Stefano Murialdo, and Antonio Brilla. In the 19th century, new rules were established. Further changes came later, still within the framework of tradition. After the war, the number of faithful increased, and a grand crowd now follows the procession of the heavy “casse,” still carried on the shoulders of hundreds of bearers. The spectacle remains magnificent, with a choral-orchestral group of three hundred performers, and evocative plays of light and shadow that make the event truly unique.
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