Gypsy

• Photographer
  Serena Libutti

I decided to tell, through photography, the story of one of the towering figures of one of the oldest representations of the Sacred and moving events of Lucania, a region of southern Italy: the gypsy of Barile. The character was created by popular tradition and represents the woman who provided the roughly forged nails for the crucifixion of Christ. From Christmas onwards the Barilesi origins girl who will play the gypsy, usually a beautiful sultry brunette, meets the gold of the families of the country. With the ten pounds of beautiful antique gold that collects, the gypsy "builds" a rich bodice, and yet it fills the fingers and arms, the hair and neck, laughing impudent, shameless sway before Christ bloodied, gives the people chickpeas and confetti, extracting them from a red-lust basket in which peep, claims, the nails of the crucifixion. It 'hard not to read in this tastefully opulent gold also traces of the eastern past of splendors from orthodox church still close to the Albanian people whose patron is, since the diaspora, Our Lady of Constantinople.