The Dead Christ
The Dead Christ
The statue of the Dead Christ that is carried in procession is a stuccoed and painted wooden statue by an unknown author. According to a document of 1795 the statue was ordered to be sculptured in 1670 and repainted in 1723. At the time it was the property of the Municipality but was preserved in the Church of St. John. Its Baroque origin can be noticed in the rough details of the wounds, which are a bright red, caused by the flagellation and by the spear that, according to the story of the gospels, pierced the side of Jesus. For now we have no way of knowing when a small case with the relic of the fragment of the Real Cross was placed in the figure's chest. Some faithful kiss it when the statue is exposed in the church before the procession. In the past the statue of Christ was transported along the streets of the town on a litter covered in black velvet, placed under an elegant canopy. It was supported by four deacons wearing the dalmatic, surrounded by six brothers of Our Lady of Sorrows, preceded by six clergyman with the surplice and a torch (the large double or treble candles) and surrounded by other brothers with the "vase-shaped" lamps painted by Bagutti. Today the body of the Saviour lies on red velvet (corresponding to the modern colour of the paraments during the period of the Passion, after almost 2000 years of black), while the statue is carried by lawmen attired in mourning clothes (black suit and tie on white shirt with white gloves). Certainly after 1898, but most likely from about 1940, the group of the dead Christ was increased with the addition of the figures of some Roman soldiers and of two characters that were already present during the Funziun di Giüdee, precisely Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who conveyed the Messiah's body to the Holy Sepulchre and arranged the funeral rites for his burial according to the Jewish customs of the time. The latter is an addition that clashes with the mainly religious character and with the more solemn atmosphere of Good Friday's procession, compared to the more popular and spectacular one of the previous day.