Risorgimento & Nation-State Formation

The unified Italian nation-state and its formation.

1 chapter

1530 - 1798

The Council of Trent (1545–1563) systematically reshaped local ritual practice, overlaying Eucharistic processions and Baroque spectacle onto existing traditions. The Papal States governed most of Lazio, Umbria, and parts of Marche; their institutional records present a top-down view of ritual that may obscure popular and local initiative. In Rome, the Chiesa del Gesù (consecrated 1584) became the Jesuit mother church, a model of Counter-Reformation architecture designed to impress and convert. Pope Paul IV established the Jewish Ghetto on July 14, 1555, with the bull Cum Nimis Absurdum — confining Rome's ancient Jewish community (present since 161 BCE) behind walls and suppressing the public visibility of its distinct Minhag Italki ritual tradition. At Genzano di Roma, the infiorata — a flower-carpet devotion — is documented since 1778 as a Corpus Domini practice; whether the flower-carpet practice built on earlier seasonal flower traditions requires further local research, though the coincidence of the Corpus Christi date with peak flower season creates a natural calendar overlap. Spello's infiorate follow the same pattern. At Loreto, the Holy House sanctuary (basilica construction began 1468, façade completed 1586 under Sixtus V) became one of the Catholic world's major pilgrimage destinations, its Counter-Reformation intensification creating a ritual economy that reshaped the surrounding territory.

From 1946

The Italian Republic inherited a landscape of living ritual traditions, some unbroken for centuries, others consciously revived. The Calendimaggio at Assisi took its current form in a 1954 revival of medieval factional competition between the Parte di Sopra and Parte di Sotto; both the official festival narrative and local tradition acknowledge a deeper layer — the timing corresponds to the Kalends of May, and the festival's own website describes its origins as linked to pagan spring customs. The Giostra del Saracino at Arezzo was revived in 1931 and runs twice yearly in June and September. Gallicano's Palio di San Jacopo, with origins in the 1950s and current form since 1972, shows how small towns create new festival structures using the same contrada-competition grammar as Siena. The Festa dei Ceri at Gubbio — run every May 15 without interruption — is the ceraioli's devotion to their patron saint; the race from Piazza Grande through the gates and up Monte Ingino follows the same vertical topography that dictated the pre-Roman Atiedian Brotherhood's lustration route. Siena's Palio, run on July 2 and August 16, remains the contrade's ritual of identity — baptisms, marriages, and funerals happen within the contrada, not just the race. The Roman Jewish community, after the Ghetto walls came down in 1870, returned to public ritual space; the modern public Menorah lighting in Piazza Barberini during Chanukah marks a community continuous since 161 BCE. Grottaferrata Abbey still celebrates the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in Greek, following the Eastern calendar — a living reminder that Central Italian festival culture was never monolithically Latin-rite Catholic. What you experience today across Central Italy is not a museum of re-enactments but a palimpsest: the roads, the calendar dates, the hilltop destinations, and the community structures have survived every change of narrative from Etruscan to Roman to Christian to Italian, carrying ritual memory in their physical form even when the meaning has been rewritten.

1400 - 1530

The communal republics gave way to signorie — lordships ruled by powerful families — who poured wealth into architecture, art, and the spectacle that became Central Italy's festival vocabulary. In Florence, the Medici transformed the Baptistery and built the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, creating a model of humanist patronage that spread across Tuscany. In Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro built the Ducal Palace — now a UNESCO World Heritage Site — as a Renaissance ideal city that attracted scholars and artists from across Europe. Orvieto's cathedral, positioned on the processional route, became the focal point for Corpus Domini observances after the 1263 Bolsena miracle, though the current Baroque processional form dates to later overlay. Perugia passed from communal government to Baglioni family rule, then to papal control. Monteriggioni's fortified walls, built by Siena in the 13th century as a frontier outpost against Florence, still crown the hill — a material reminder that the boundaries between Siena and Florence shaped everything, including whose saints were celebrated and whose processions dominated the streets.

1100 - 1400

Between 1100 and 1400, Central Italy's cities seized self-governance from imperial and papal authority, forming communal republics that invented the institutional structures still visible in today's festivals. Lucca became an independent commune in 1160, controlling a key passage on the Via Francigena and building its wealth on silk trade. Siena's contrade — originally 59 neighborhood districts — crystallized into self-governing micro-communities, each with its own church, baptismal font, and archive; 17 survive today. The Palio di Siena, run on July 2 and August 16 in the shell-shaped Piazza del Campo, is the contrade's ritual of self-governance, not merely a horse race. At Gubbio, the Corsa dei Ceri — documented since the 12th century as a devotion to Saint Ubaldo — races three towering wooden structures (ceri) from Piazza Grande through the city gates and uphill to the Basilica di Sant'Ubaldo on Monte Ingino. Some scholars note that the ritual shares features with the pre-Roman Umbrian rites described in the Iguvine Tablets (3rd–1st c. BC), inscribed at the same site; the Fisian Arx described in the tablets has been placed on Monte Ingino, where the Ceri race ends. Neither position excludes the other: a pre-Christian ritual structure could have been absorbed into saint devotion. Meanwhile, Francis of Assisi launched a popular religious revolution that reshaped how Central Italians practiced ritual — shifting from institutional to affective devotion. The Calendimaggio at Assisi, while formally a lay event of the Parte di Sopra and Parte di Sotto, operates in the shadow of the Franciscan sacred space; both the official festival narrative and local tradition acknowledge its timing corresponds to the Kalends of May and links to pagan spring customs. Arezzo's Giostra del Saracino, documented by Dante in Canto XXII of the Inferno, established the joust tradition that would be revived in 1931.