Sabato

Questa mattina abbiamo fatto una passeggiata sulle mura (This morning we went for a walk on the wall.) Fa bel tempo. (The weather is nice). Abbiamo mangiato al Vecchia Trattoria Buralli per il pranzo. (We ate at Vecchi Trattroia Buralli for lunch).  We make sure we eat there every time we visit Lucca.  Then we took a walk to watch them start lighting the candles in the afternoon - so very many and they lasted well into the night. The event is La luminaria of the Holy Face of Lucca. (Volto Santo di Lucca) is a venerated wooden corpus of acrucifix, located in the free-standing octagonal Carrara marble chapel (the tempietto or "little temple"), which was built in 1484 by Matteo Civitali, the sculptor-architect of Lucca, to contain it. The tempietto stands in the right-hand nave of the cathedral of San Martinoin Lucca, Italy. Medieval legends stated that it had been sculpted by that Nicodemus who assisted Joseph of Arimathea in depositing Christ in the tomb and specifically dated its arrival in Lucca to AD 742.

Dante mentions the Volto Santo of Lucca in his Inferno, Canto XXI, where a demon cries:We were planning  our route to watch the evening events  when Debora, the woman from whom we rent,  helped us decide. She was right on. The parade was amazing and long, very long - about 1 1/2 hours!  Everyone in Lucca participated, so it seemed.  Amazing - lots of banners, chanting, songs, uniforms, costumes etc.   Tried to capture it in pictures!  Later from the wall we watched the fireworks. Long evening but, very enjoyable.

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