Viterbo is preparing to celebrate the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi. In the courtyard of Palazzo dei Priori, the city administration presented the calendar of events for the Franciscan Jubilee, in the presence of Mayor Chiara Frontini, councillor Alessandra Croci, provincial councillor Umberto Di Fusco, Don Mario Brizi and the poet Davide Rondoni, president of the National Committee for the celebrations. “Viterbo is a land with a deeply Franciscan soul,” recalled councillor Croci: an identity that the calendar, running from August to October, aims to celebrate with pilgrim walks, sacred music concerts, Pilgrim Week, the musical Forza venite gente, a commemorative postmark, and the show Lu Santo Jullàre Francesco by Mario Pirovano.
As a fitting close to the evening, a moment that fills us with pride: Davide Rondoni was given a ceramic zaffera artwork depicting Saint Francis, made by Cinzia Chiulli in her studio in San Pellegrino. The saint is portrayed in the raised cobalt blue on white glaze that characterises this fifteenth-century Viterbo technique, which Cinzia continues to preserve and reinterpret: an ancient language that speaks to the present once again, just like Francis’s message.
For those who want to learn more about this technique, we told its history and secrets in the article dedicated to zaffera, a fifteenth-century ceramic tradition.
Source: ViterboNews24 – Franciscan Jubilee, calendar of events presented in Viterbo
