On March 1, 2026, I stood in Naples, a city that, in the early spring light, felt surprisingly gentle. The noise of scooters, voices, and footsteps blended with a soft warmth that hardly seemed to match the city’s notorious intensity. Among tourists and locals, small processions unexpectedly appeared: groups of followers of the Madonna dell’Arco, recognizable by their simple clothing and the calm, swaying pace with which they moved through the streets. Brass bands and bright trumpet blasts accompanied them, as if the city had briefly taken on a quicker heartbeat.
In Campania, preparations for the feast of the Madonna dell’Arco begin immediately after Shrove Tuesday. The forty days leading up to Easter Monday form a period filled with rituals: processions, collections, visits to street altars, and moments of remembrance for the dead. In a city where life and death exist almost casually side by side, these practices seem like a natural echo of daily existence. Strikingly, many young people take part; tradition here is not merely preserved but lived, passed from generation to generation.
The Madonna dell’Arco is part of the Campanian folk-religious cult surrounding the so-called Seven Sisters. They are not part of the official Marian devotion as established in 1974 by Pope Paul VI. The Church does not recognize the devotion, partly because of its visible pagan elements. The Seven Sisters are seen as seven manifestations of Mary, each with her own character and temperament. They move between tenderness and severity, between protection and punishment. The result is a form of belief in which Christian symbolism blends unabashedly with older, pre-Christian traditions.
Within this tradition, the Madonna dell’Arco occupies a special place. She is regarded as just but strict, a figure who swiftly punishes when vows are broken or when she is offended. It is precisely this combination that gives her the power so recognizable in Campania: she sees, judges, and consoles. In the sanctuary dedicated to her, countless ex-votos hang—tangible testimonies of healing, illness, accidents, and other moments when fate intervened unexpectedly. Together they form an archive of human vulnerability.
In the days leading up to her feast day, devotees visit the altars of the deceased. It is a ritual of purification: a way to do justice to the past, to honor the dead, and to restore family relationships. Only afterward does one feel worthy of turning to the Madonna herself.
In Forcella, a working-class neighborhood that has struggled for decades under the grip of the Camorra, I witnessed such a moment of remembrance. In the narrow streets, where life unfolds in full public view, residents gathered around two street altars bearing the memory of young men who were killed by violence in recent years.
The first altar was dedicated to the eighteen-year-old Arcangelo Correa. On November 9, 2024, he was fatally struck by a bullet from a so-called “found” pistol, accidentally fired by his cousin Renato Caiafa. The tragedy left a devastated family behind—a story that, tragically, is not unusual in Forcella. Both Renato’s brother, Luigi, and father, Ciro, had been killed in 2020, the former shot dead by police at the age of seventeen during a failed armed robbery attempt and the latter in an ambush by a criminal gang.
A few streets away stood the second altar: that of Emanuele Durante. He was murdered on March 15, 2025, as retaliation in a conflict in which he himself played little role. Rival groups saw in him the weakest link, a way to send a message. Emanuele was related to Annalisa Durante, the fourteen-year-old girl who was killed in 2004 by a stray bullet during a shootout between the Giuliano and Mazzarella clans. She was merely a passerby, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When these stories are placed side by side, one sees how deeply organized crime has embedded itself in the neighborhood. Generations are marked, families torn apart, lives abruptly ended. Yet for many residents, religious rituals offer a way to endure. Altars, candles, and processions become means of giving meaning to grief that would otherwise be unbearable. The Madonna dell’Arco provides no solutions, but she offers a place where pain can be laid down.
At the altars of Arcangelo and Emanuele, the gestures consisted of prayers and the sign of the cross, followed by the ballo delle bandiere: a ritual dance of honor, gratitude, or penance. The dancer rhythmically moves a banner bearing the image of a saint through the air, accompanied by drums, trumpets, and song. The dance has something trance-like about it, a moment in which the body seems to take on the burden of the story.
Afterward, prayer cards were placed in the altars. Residents knelt, stood still, or slowly walked past, making the sign of the cross or placing a hand over their heart.
In Devoti Violenti, the book I co-authored with Silvana Radoani and Luciano Martucci, we examine this cult. We show how religious devotion and popular culture in Campania are closely intertwined—and how organized crime uses this entanglement to reinforce its own presence within the community.
By guest contributor, Francesco Pepe, a Dutch independent scholar of Italian descent. He has contributed to various documentaries and publications. Together with Arnold-Jan Scheer and Michiel de Jong, he conducted research on the history of the feast of Saint Nicholas in Europe. He has also collaborated with Dr. Joseph Sciorra and Professor Jason Pine on research into neomelodica music within southern Italian migrant enclaves in Northern Europe, the United States, and Australia. Together with Silvana Radoani and Luciano Martucci, he co-authored Devoti Violenti, a book about Catholic and folk saints in the context of organized crime in Italy and Latin America.
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