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Viterbo renews the ancient tradition of the celebration of Saint Rosa
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Viterbo is an ancient city of Etruscan origin a hundred kilometers north of the Italian capital that preserve all its medieval flavor still today.
About forty thousand of its inhabitants have just celebrated once more Saint Rosa, renewing a tradition that goes back to 1258. It all started when seven years after the death of the saint and its disappearance her body was miraculously found perfectly preserved. In that occasion the body of Saint Rosa was moved by four cardinals from Santa Maria del Poggio square to the basilica.
Since then in Viterbo, in the evening of September the third, the believers devoted to the saint carry on their shoulders, through the city streets "Santa Rosa’s machine" a construction similar to a bell tower, tall 30 meters and heavy 50 quintals that has been named “Rose of Heaven” in honor of the saint.
Many things in Italy are regulated by traditions and the beautiful town located in the Region Lazio is no exception. According to one of those traditions the hundred porters wear a white uniform while, the machine is rebuilt and changes every five years. This year the new artifact was created by the popular architect Arturo Vittori who works also in the United States and who planned it in order to represent a gigantic torch consisting of three flames of flowers.
The devotion is physically very challenging for the believers that carry the imposing machine for the twelve hundred meters long route and, at times, not all of them succeed in completing it as it was programmed for the event.
It is interesting to note that at each stop of Santa Rosa’s machine, meant to allow the crowd of people to see it better and also to give some rest to the exhausted porters, rose petals fall down from the top. The fascinating Viterbo captures even more the enthusiasm of its Italian and international visitors with a suggestive celebration that will be difficult to forget and that is rich of a timeless symbolism.
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