Feast of Maria Santissima della Libera and the Flight of the Angel

An Easter festival in the heart of the Terra di Lavoro

In San Tammaro, a town of just under 6,000 inhabitants in the province of Caserta, Campania, the patronal feast does not fall in summer as it does in much of Southern Italy: it is celebrated during the Easter season, with its main day being Easter Monday. This is when the effigies of Maria Santissima della Libera and Saint Tammaro the Bishop are carried in procession through the streets of the town center, shouldered by the accollatori (bearers) and accompanied by handmaidens and a brass band.

The Flight of the Angel, the ritual that gives the feast its name

The most anticipated moment is the Flight of the Angel. A cable is stretched between the church bell tower and the building opposite: two young girls dressed as angels, attached to a pulley, travel through the air several meters above the ground, descending slowly toward the triumphal floats carrying the statues. As they fly, they sing specially composed sacred hymns, recite verses of greeting to the Madonna, and scatter flower petals over the crowd filling the churchyard. The flight is performed twice: before the procession departs and upon its return.

It is more than just a spectacle. The scholar Roberto De Simone interpreted this ritual as a symbolic journey to the underworld, a tale of death and rebirth rooted in mythological themes far older than the Christian cult: a key that explains the emotional intensity of the moment, when the town holds its breath before erupting into applause.

The religious program

• The Diana mattutina (morning reveille), which opens the festival day at dawn;
• Eucharistic celebrations in the parish church;
• The long procession of the two effigies through the streets of the town, accompanied by the band;
• The memorial mass for the deceased at the cemetery, one of the most attended events;
• The two Flights of the Angel on the churchyard, the heart of both devotion and spectacle.

The secular program: music, comedy, and street food

Alongside the liturgical program, the secular festivities take place, which in recent years have occupied Piazza Don Pasquale Gravino and Piazza Madonna della Libera: Neapolitan and neomelodic music concerts, comedy nights, DJ sets, the community picnic with the band in the square, and street food stalls along Via Domenico Capitelli. The grand finale is the pyro-musical show, with fireworks synchronized to music illuminating the bell tower.

Organizers

The festival is organized by the Parish of San Tammaro, led by Father Giovanni Antonio Mingione, with the patronage of the Municipality of San Tammaro. It is an entirely local effort: the committee, bearers, handmaidens, and families hosting relatives who return for the occasion.

A small town, a tenacious tradition

San Tammaro lies 22 meters above sea level in the Caserta plain and includes the hamlet of Carditello. The patron saint, Saint Tammaro the Bishop, is commemorated in the liturgical calendar on January 16th, but it is in spring that the town pays him its greatest tribute, joining him with the Madonna della Libera. For those visiting Campania during these days, it is an opportunity to see a patronal feast still lived by the community rather than packaged for tourists.