Every town in Italy, by church decree, must have a patron saint. In the case of Viterbo, two saints guard the entrance to the city atop Porta Romana. San Lorenzo, he of the “flip me over. I’m done on that side.” martyrdom and Santa Rosa. The feast day for Santa Rosa is coming up in a few days and we have begun the sequence of events leading up to that occasion. Last night was the first of those, the parade of the mini-macchina or macchinini.
It is difficult to make sense of much of the event without understanding the traditions surrounding the parade of the Macchina di Santa Rosa which happens tomorrow. The macchinini procession occurs in the dark and is led by groups of costumed marchers and the traditional drums and flag twirlers.
The macchinini is essentially a small tower carried, in float-like fashion, by a group of male children. I only saw a small portion of the route, so I’m not sure if all of the marchers take turns carrying the macchina. From my vantage point, the first to pass were relatively young boys, probably aged 6-8. They strode past, linked arm in arm as their older counterparts will on Monday evening.
They were followed by ranks of increasingly taller and presumably older boys until the actual macchinini went past carried by a squad of young teenagers.
Atop the small tower, lit by enough candles that the fire department accompanied its passage, is a statue of Rosa.
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