Festival of Maria SS. Incaldana (Patronal Feast)

The most heartfelt festival in Mondragone

The Festival of Maria SS. Incaldana is the most beloved religious and civil event in Mondragone, a coastal city in the province of Caserta, Campania. Every year, in the days immediately following Easter, the entire community gathers around the venerated icon of the Madonna kept in the Minor Basilica Sanctuary of Maria SS. Incaldana, on Via del Santuario. This is not just a patronal feast: it is the moment when Mondragone rediscovers its identity, amidst solemn celebrations, a historical pageant, illuminations, concerts in the square, and market stalls along the streets of the center.

The legend of the icon and the oxen

The devotion has roots in an episode handed down for centuries. An ancient hermitage entrusted to the Carmelite friars was allegedly set on fire during a Turkish raid, but the wooden panel painted with the image of the Virgin was miraculously saved and found by a shepherdess. In 1624, when the religious left the sanctuary for good, a dispute arose between Mondragone and the neighboring Piedimonte di Sessa over the possession of the icon: it was decided to entrust the choice to the animals, placing the painting on a cart pulled by two oxen, one for each community. The oxen took the road to Mondragone and stopped in the Incaldana area, where the chapel that gave rise to the current basilica was erected.

The icon, painted on an oak panel in the Byzantine style between the 13th and 14th centuries, depicts the Virgin in a blue mantle breastfeeding the Child and is kept in a glass case; next to Mary's face appear the Greek letters identifying her as Theotokos, Mother of God. In 2024, the city celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary of the image's arrival with a particularly solemn edition.

The historical pageant of Easter Monday

The popular heart of the festival is the commemorative historical pageant on Easter Monday. A copy of the sacred icon is placed on the straglia, the traditional agricultural cart pulled by oxen, and departs from the small Belvedere church to cross the entire city to the sanctuary, accompanied by figures in period costumes, confraternities, and parish groups. The following day, the Tuesday after Easter, is the true city holiday: the solemn Eucharistic concelebration is presided over by the bishop of the Diocese of Sessa Aurunca, Monsignor Giacomo Cirulli.

Music, illuminations, and squares

Alongside the liturgical program, the Maria SS. Incaldana Festival Committee organizes a rich and popular civil calendar every year: evening concerts in Piazza Umberto I, Neapolitan and neomelodic music shows, bands and symphony orchestras, flag-waving performances, a food and wine tour in the historic center featuring local Mondragone dishes and wines, the traditional lottery, and the fireworks display that closes the festivities. The Piazza Giovanni Falcone and Viale Margherita area hosts the most popular events, while the Municipality issues traffic modification ordinances every year to allow the events to take place safely.

The Peregrinatio of the icon

Every twenty-five years, the original icon leaves the sanctuary to visit, one after the other, the parishes of the Forania of Mondragone: this is the Peregrinatio, a long pilgrimage within the city that accompanies the image among the communities of San Nicola, San Michele Arcangelo, Maria SS. Addolorata, San Giustino, San Giuseppe, and San Rufino, before its solemn return to the basilica. It is a rare and highly anticipated event that extends the festival into a time of widespread devotion capable of involving every neighborhood.

Mondragone between the Massico and the sea

Those arriving for the festival find a city overlooking the Gulf of Gaeta, at the foot of Mount Massico, with a long sandy beach, the medieval fortress of Montis Dragonis, and a countryside historically dedicated to viticulture, the same that gave fame to Falerno wine. The Incaldana festival, at the beginning of spring, is the best opportunity to discover this corner of the Domitian coast when the beach season has not yet begun and city life is entirely concentrated in the squares of the center.