Architecture, Territory, Traditions. The Cult of the Madonna del Carmine called “delle Galline” in Pagani

Using graphic, photographic, and iconographic documentation, this paper investigates the celebrations of the Madonna del Carmine, “immaterial asset of Italy” according to the Central Institute for Demoetnoanthropology of MIBAC, and their link with the architecture of the town of Pagani, in Southern Italy. The aim is to promote the enhancement and the safeguard of this territory, and its memory consisting of spoken traditions, rituals, worships, festivals, and craftmanship. Intangible assets, as expression of a population’s culture and its identity, are currently at risk in today’s fast moving globalized society which tends to wipe out local identities despite their important role in the configuration of cultural landscapes. Pagani provides us with a valid example of a place where material and immaterial combine together to create a strong link between the town’s architecture and religious cult, local traditions and folkloristic events, that find their maximum representation in the feast of Madonna del Carmine also known as Madonna delle Galline. The painting of the Madonna itself is a replica of an ancient effigy kept underground probably to be saved from iconoclastic destruction, and then randomly found by some hens in a courtyard in the eighteenth century. As memory of this episode, during the festival, the statue of the Madonna, covered with hens and birds, is triumphantly brought in procession around the city, stopping by courtyards of old farmhouses and representative buildings of the town where are the “toselli,” special votive altars set up for the occasion. The paper offers a deep dive into this tradition and its architectures.