From private to public to cult site. The changing architecture of Pagani's toselli

The heritage of intangible assets consisting of spoken traditions, rituals, worships, festivals, and craft activities, expresses a population’s culture, defining its identity. Despite the central role it plays in the cultural scene, this heritage is currently at risk to disperse and disappear. Therefore, a critical study and analysis of immaterial assets of a community represent the key to promote the enhancement and the safeguard of the territory, the architecture, and the cities. This is the case of the festival of the Madonna delle Galline, “immaterial asset of Italy” according to the Central Institute for Demoetnoanthropology of MIBAC, which takes place in the Octave Day of Easter in the city of Pagani in the Agro Nocerino Sarnese in Campania. During the festival, the procession of the statue of the Madonna stops by courtyards of old farmhouses and the most representative buildings of the city where are the “toselli”, special votive altars set up with colored drapes. The paper investigates through a graphic, photographic and iconographic documentation, the places of the worship of the Madonna del Carmine, called “delle Galline”, which during the festival shift from private to public, changing architectural and urban spaces of the city to express devotion to the Virgin. The aim is to offer a different reading of the city to promote the enhancement and the protection of local traditions, which represent an important resource for the sustainable development of the territory, contaminating it with intangible assets.