Year of foundation: 1816

Last performance: -

Next performance: -

Playing interval: Every 5 years

Performances per interval: 40

Venue type: Theatre

Number of contributors: 700

Website: www.passionedicristo.org

E-Mail: passione@passionedicristo.org

For more than 200 years the people of Sordevolo, a village with 1300 inhabitants in the Province of Biella , perform a popular play that is unique in Italy and worldwide. A great event organized every 5 years with 40 representations, able to call audience not only from all Italy but also from several countries of the world, from USA to Australia to Japan.All the proceeds are devoted to charity. The next edition will be on Summer 2020, just the same year when the fifth centennial Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Oropa will take place. (Sordevolo is situated between the Shrines of Oropa and Graglia)

The play of the "Passione” that we nowadays know was born 200 years ago, but its origin is far older. In Rom between the end of the XV century and the first part of the XVi, the Society of the Gonfalon Brotherhood plays a text of the Passion of Christ in Colosseum. This text is printed in Rome for the first time in 1500-1501. It is written by the Florentine Giuliano Dati and, during the next centuries, has arrived to Sordevolo thanks to the links existing between the family Ambrosetti, important weavers in Sordevolo, with the Papal Court or thanks to the St. Lucy Brotherhood in Verdobbio, hamlet of Sordevolo, that was associated to the Gonfalon Brotherhood in Rom.

The scenography, completely realized by the inhabitants with their own means and competence, rebuilds a corner of Jerusalem in the 33 a.C.: Herod’s palace, the Sanhedrin, Pilate’s Preaetorium, the Garden of Gethsemane, the last Supper room, the mount Calvary.

Sordevolo (Biella)