Madonne e Sante di Palermo. Continuità, risorgenze, invenzioni. Un omaggio a Pino Martorana

More than twenty years after the death of Giuseppe Martorana(1939-2005) some of the central themes of his historical-religious teachingthey appear very current if compared to the vitality with which Santeand Sicilian Madonnas are still celebrated today in many places on the island.The study of the female figures of the pantheon of ancient and Christian Sicily isin fact it has been the subject of important investigations by Martorana from Il Riso diDemeter. Heroes and saints of Sicily (1985) to Madonnas and Saints of Sicily (1995),the latter dedicated in particular to the Marian cults of the towns of the provinceof Palermo with the explicit intention of emphasizing the peculiar relationships betweenterritories and epiphanies of the sacred feminine and to highlight as certain practicesand beliefs relating to the cult of Christian Madonnas and Saints could beusefully traced and interpreted in the light of the female cults of SicilyGreek and pre-Greek. And it is from these considerations that it startsthis research contribution on the feasts dedicated to the Madonnas and Saintsof the city of Palermo aimed on the one hand to verify how much the continuist perspectivecan be productive with respect to understanding urban festivalson the other hand to illustrate the consistency and the peculiar characteristics of the city festivalscontemporary.