If you go to Matera at the end of June and the beginning of July you can witness an event that is important to the spirituality of the city and full of various emotions. It is an event that brings together and deeply involves all the inhabitants of Matera who, in these few days, experience a festival that is talked about all over the world.

The Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary della Bruna is one of the oldest religious festivals in the south of Italy and was instituted by Pope Urban VI, a former Archbishop of Matera, in 1389.

It is held every year between the end of June and early July, but it reaches its peak on July 2nd, when there is a dawn procession of shepherds and the inhabitants of the old neighbourhoods wake up at the first light of dawn to greet the Painting of the Virgin by setting off firecrackers as it passes by. The statue of the Madonna della Bruna is first transferred to the Church of Piccianello and then, in the afternoon, it is carried on a triumphal cart or wagon along a route through the city streets, with crowds of the townsfolk eagerly waiting for it to arrive. In the evening the wagon goes round the square in front of the cathedral three times and the statue followed by the bishop, the clergy and the faithful of Matera following it, is taken back into the cathedral. But the festival does not end there. The wagon, a work of art created by the masters of papier-mâché sculpture, is attacked once the statue has been removed and iit is completely by the local people who each try to take home a part of it, as a good luck charm and sign of fortune.

Also very important and with a particularly dramatic impact, is the presence of horsemen who escort the wagon through the streets during the day. There are around a hundred of them, each wearing a richly decorated costume with a breastplate, a helmet and a velvet or satin cloak.

At the end of the evening, when the wagon has been destroyed and not a scrap of it is left, you can attend the grand firework display that illuminates the Sassi. 

The typical peasant proverb: “A magghj a magghj a l’an c’van”, which literally means “we hope that the next year it goes in the best way” was traditionally said after the destruction of the wagon at the end of the Festa della Bruna every year. It expressed the wish to be able to admire another beautiful wagon also the following year.