Sant'Agata, Catania
by Giuseppe Cardoni
portfolio special mention call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2025', 2025
Category: Memories and Traditions
Every year on February 3, 4 and 5, Catania offers her Patron Saint such an extraordinary celebration that can only be compared to Holy Week in Seville or Corpus Christi in Cuzco, Peru. During those three days, the city forgets everything to focus on the celebration that represents the roots of a people with a mix of devotion and folklore. This celebration attracts more than a million people each year, including devotees and the curious. The streets of the city are filled with "citizens", devotees who wear the traditional white "sack". The processions of March 4 and 5 pass through the places of martyrdom and retrace the events of the history of the Holy Martyr, which are intertwined with that of the city. A ritual that is experienced every year thanks to a multitude of candles, faces, glances, gestures, voices, passions that are consumed in an uncontainable explosion of faith and civic identity passion.