The tradition connected with Saint Efisio

La Corte in Giorgino has always been the destination of pilgrimages, especially at the time of the procession in honour of Saint Efisio, which has taken place between Cagliari and Nora since 1652, from the first to the fourth of May every year in memory of the liberation of the city of Cagliari from the plague: it is a tradition that has never been interrupted, not even by the bombings of Cagliari in 1943, which devastated the city.

In the church of Giorgino on the first of May the saint’s fine clothes and precious jewellery with which he leaves the city are changed to more modest ones for the rest of the journey to Nora.

The halo and golden palm are replaced with others of silver, and even the Baroque 18th-century coach is replaced with a more resistant one known as the "country coach" which is kept at Giorgino for the whole year in the room connected to the chapel and known as the "Coach Room". The country coach is also from the 18th century and belongs to the Archconfraternity of Saint Efisio in Cagliari. It is kept at the church of Saint Efisio at Giorgino which belongs to the Ballero family. Between 2008 and 2009, on the initiative of the committee for the Recovery of Saint Efisio’s Country Coach, appointed on the occasion of Sant’Efisio 2008, in agreement with the Archconfraternity and following approval by the competent superintendency of Cagliari, the country coach was entirely restored.

The changes along the route to Nora always take place with the direct participation of members of the Ballero family, especially the younger generations. In fact, the youngest are the ones who repeat the gestures, unchanged over the centuries, with the same participation and devotion.

On May 4th the operation is repeated to prepare the saint, once again richly decorated with his precious jewels, for his return to the city where festivities begin again to honour the vow of the city which year after year for more than three centuries has never been interrupted.

It is difficult to discover exactly when this ceremony at Giorgino began. But there are traces of it starting from 1787 in a document that speaks of a meeting of the Archiconfraternity of Saint Efisio in which the stopover at Giorgino is mentioned.

We can be sure that initially the tradition also had a concrete practical justification in the need to change the precious apparel of the saint and remove the jewels that adorned him just before setting out along the road to Nora and return, which at the time was not exactly safe due to the presence of brigands, but also necessary to allow the pilgrims to rest.

In any case, it is with Count Michele Ciarella that the ritual of welcoming the saint became consolidated. The count made a vow to keep up the tradition every year forever, starting from when in 1816 he tragically lost his wife and two children in a shipwreck.

As concerns this ceremony, there is a disposition in Count Ciarella’s will, drawn up on 24 November 1827, to the effect that "in the chapel of my property, located beyond the scaffa, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is to be celebrated, and there to be conserved the ashes of my wife Donna Antonia and also my ashes to be conserved there; here the simulacrum of glorious Saint Efisio is to be received on his yearly procession to and from Pula, thus I desire and order that my heirs and any successor, either universal or singular, are to use the same care, zeal and devotion that I have and always have had, maintaining this chapel at all times in a

good state of repair and conserving all that pertains and is considered accessory to same..."

The tradition that began in this way still today sees the repetition of these rites in accordance with the same customs and participation that have now been followed for over two centuries by the will of the family of the Counts Ballero, the direct descendants of Count Michele Ciarella.

In the church at Giorgino, when festivities become a pilgrimage, folklore gives way to faith, the triumph and applause become recitation of the rosary and litanies expressed in hushed voices: it is here that we have the first stop of the long procession in honour of Saint Efisio.

Concerning this secular occasion, the unforgettable Paolo De Magistris, he too a member of the Ballero family on the maternal side, wrote in his Storia di una Sagra:

"The true significance of the feast is not in the city. To grasp it one should go to Giorgino, to the rustic church where there is the first stop to change the coach and apparel. There we do not find the colours of the fantasy that have embellished the Sardinian costume with every splendour, with the songs and bright smiles of festive youth. There we have the bare feet of the anonymous women who have made vows for their most secret anxieties, there we see the tears on the wrinkled peasant faces of the elderly, urged on by secret and profound gratitude. There we do not hear the shrill sirens of celebration but the monkish sound of a small bell ringing continuously to announce the arrival of the saint to the faithful waiting there. There we see the true religious meaning of a feast that is in the heart and the tenacious, deeply felt and thankful memory."

Thus wrote Don Paolo De Magistris who however did not live to see the completion of the renovation that has restored to the church and its complex its ancient splendour after the decline in the war- and post-war years.

Nor did the cousin, the father of Benedetto, the present owner, the lawyer Antonio Ballero, who worked constantly with his wife Maria Rosaria Pattarozzi Cocco-Ortu and daughters Mariella, Paola and Gabriella to guarantee respect for the centuries-old tradition in the church at Giorgino, in fulfilling the vow of Count Michele Ciarella.