The museum ‘Tra Sacro e Profano’ (Between Sacred and Profane), inaugurated in 2017, is housed in the former church of San Nicolò, one of the first religious structures in the historic centre, built around the 13th century. Today it is also used as a conference and concert hall thanks to the presence of a beautiful grand piano.
The museum tour inside the church’s straightforward and austere structure provides a vivid and powerful testimony to the religious and folkloristic history of the town. Inside, the sacred and the profane, two ways of being so different and opposite, are inextricably linked and complementary. The chapel on the left exhibits past liturgical vestments and an ancient missal in Latin. The chapel on the opposite side keeps grotesque creatures, hellish figures with deep, piercing black eyes, guarded by two archangels in white robes, elegant, colourful pearls, and glittering swords.
They are the protagonists of a lively pantomime, ‘U Ballu di Diavuli’, a highly evocative propitiatory rite that has enlivened the streets of our village on Easter Sunday since 1711, attracting tourists from all over Italy and the world.
