Sant'Agata Festivity

For the past five centuries the people of Catania have paid homage to the town's patron saint. Around a million locals and tourists fill the streets of the town and the Piazza Duomo. Only the Holy Week in Seville, and the corpus Domini ceremony in Cuzco, Peru, may be compared in terms of popularity, to the festivities held in St. Agatha's honour. During those intense days, Catania turns into one and only crowd marching behind the Patron.

Celebrations take place from February 3 to 5, anniversary of the Saint's death, and on August 17, when the Saint’s relics were brought back from Costantinopolis.

Several religious ceremonies are held during those incredible days: one of the most impressive is devoted to the offering of candles: each confraternity offers a huge “candelora” that is carried in the procession with difficulty due to its weight: some “candelore” weigh up to 1200 kilograms each! "Almost all Sicilian feasts are baroque" says historian Giovanni Lanzafame. Writing about the eleven "candelore", he defines the so called "annacata " as "baroque on the move ". Baroque moving through a baroque city as devised by Vaccarini after the 1693 earthquake. Then the festival continues with a procession carrying the statue of Sant'Agata, decorated with all the wonderful treasures that are kept in the Chapel that carries the saint's name: the statue, which houses her relics, is placed on the fercolo, a silver carriage and pulled up the steep Via Sangiuliano by around 5,000 men. The procession lasts 2 days and passes by all the places in the city that are linked to the saint's martyrdom. A spectacular fireworks display in Piazza del Duomo completes these incredible ceremonies.

Agata lived during the third century AD, when Sicily was under the Roman Empire, and was the daughter of an important rich local family. She was very religious and, while still very young, decided to dedicate her life to God by resisting any men who wanted her at a turbulent time in Sicily, when Christians were prosecuted.
She became a martyr when she refused the advances of Roman proconsul Quintian. With his pride offended, and taking advantage of the persecution rules he had her arrested and brought before himself to be judged. He thought that when faced with torture and possible death she would give in, but Agata refused to abandon her faith not even after being imprisoned in a brothel, then sent to prison and tortured in the attempt to change her mind. In the end, Quintian sent her to the stake on the 5th of February 251AD.