Twenty groups of carved and dressed figures, each a scene from the Passion, are carried through Trapani by the ceti — the trade guilds that have owned them since the seventeenth century. The procession leaves on Good Friday afternoon and returns on Saturday afternoon, continuously, for about twenty-four hours.
The carrying is itself the art. The massari set a swaying rhythm called the annacata, matched to a band playing funeral marches, so the figures move as if breathing. Men inherit a place under a particular vara from their fathers.
No attendance figure is published.
One practical note on listings: this is a single continuous event, though it is sometimes catalogued twice under the Italian and the Sicilian names. Trapani is at the far west of Sicily; Palermo is an hour and a half away and is where most visitors stay.
PlanningEaster-linked: begins Good Friday afternoon and ends Saturday afternoon. One event, not two.