Over time, the Vara has been at the center not only of the vivid chronicles of many Italian and foreign travellers, but also of great photographers who have immortalized some moments of the historic Messina Mid-August procession. Among these, Paolo Di Paolo, the Molise photojournalist known for his shots of the great protagonists of the culture of our twentieth century, illustrious author of “Il Mondo” and collaborator of Pierpaolo Pasolini. Di Paolo, in 1957, filmed groups of women who, barefoot, run on the pavement to pull the hawsers, with a truly intense scenographic effect, capable of portraying all the effort, fatigue, physical pain but also the faith and devotion of the thousands of male and female shooters.
In 1966, another legendary name of our art photography, the Venetian Gianni Berengo Gardin, who recently passed away, arrived in Sicily and – as reported in the volume “Sicilia 1966/2008 (Humboldt Book) – took three magnificent photographs in motion; one which captures the “machina festiva” dragged by many female shooters (at the time women were truly the protagonists!) close to Piazza Ottagona-Juvara, one of the beating hearts of the event. The second shoots from below the effort of the barefoot shooters on the wet lava stone, and the third, the most evocative, immortalizes some faithful in prayer during the procession, between lost, sublimating and sublimated looks, truly immersed in an ecstasy that cannot be explained with pure and simple rationality.
This, therefore, is the magic of an ancient tradition, made eternal also by author witnesses, to which we would like to add the unforgettable photojournalists who immortalized many editions of the Vara for the “Gazzetta” and elsewhere. We remember the late brothers Natalino and Agostino Saya, Michelangelo Vizzini, Enzo Sturniolo, Filippo La Cava, together with Nino Bellinghieri, who with his RTP camera gave the spectators unique moments of the procession. We like to know that they are already ready, with cameras and video cameras, to immortalize their, and our, beloved procession from up there.
We conclude with some verses dedicated to the Vara of the unforgettable Messina poet Maria Costa: «O Matri Assunta a fuda è so much that curri and sing/ and Tu Matru Assunta nta tà tà in turmenta isa, isa la To Mani Santa».
