The Lunissanti Processions of Castelsardo

Castelsardo stands on a volcanic promontory in northern Sardinia, in the territory of Anglona, overlooking the Gulf of Asinara. The medieval village still carries, in its lanes and stones, the memory of the long Aragonese rule over the island — a presence that left deep traces not only in the architecture but in the very rhythms of religious life. It is against this background that Lunissanti (the Monday that opens Holy Week) takes on its most precise meaning: not a folkloric reenactment, but a living rite, passed down through generations by the Confraternita dell'Oratorio della Santa Croce (Confraternity of the Oratory of the Holy Cross).

Before dawn, the confratelli (confraternity members) gather in the church of Santa Maria. The confraternity divides into two distinct groups: the Apostuli and Li Cantori. The former, known as Misteri, wear a white tunic gathered at the waist with a cord and are tasked with carrying through the procession the symbols of the Passion, the Crucifixion and the Deposition of Christ. Li Cantori, for their part, perform the polyphonic chant of the Miserere, a repertoire of Catalan origin handed down orally, which on the night of Lunissanti resounds through the lanes of the historic centre with a quality all its own, amplified by the stone surfaces and the darkness.

Lunissanti is the first of the three ritual stages of Holy Week in Castelsardo. It is followed by the Prucissioni on Thursday and Lu Lcravamentu on Friday, each with its own form and its own time. Together they form a coherent cycle, in which the urban landscape of the village — the narrow rises, the covered passageways, the cathedral of Sant'Antonio Abate crowning the promontory — is not merely a backdrop but an active participant in the structure of the rite. The light of the torches, the slow pace of the confratelli, the chant overlapping with the echo of the lanes: every element has a precise function within a liturgy that has undergone no substantial change over the centuries.

The Catalan imprint of the rite is recognisable in the language of the chants, in the structure of the confraternity, and in certain devotional forms that find direct counterparts in the religious tradition of the Crown of Aragon. Castelsardo was founded by the Genoese Doria family in the 12th century under the name Castelgenovese, later renamed Castel Aragonese during Iberian rule, and finally named Castelsardo in 1769 under the Savoy dynasty. This layering of names mirrors a history of successive belongings, of which Lunissanti preserves one of the oldest and most recognisable strata.

The rite is recognised as intangible heritage of significant cultural interest. Every year, on the night of the Monday of Holy Week, the faithful and observers from across Sardinia walk the same streets of the village. The procession is not staged to be watched: it is enacted to be fulfilled. Those who witness it do so at the margins of something with its own direction and its own necessity, independent of the presence of any audience.