Can tourism save Italy’s ‘Dying Town’?

For four hundred years, Civita and Bagnoregio have celebrated Good Friday with a procession featuring Civita’s Christ statue. The tradition helps Civita maintain a sense of self as its population disappears.

Traditionally, the Good Friday procession stops at a nursing home in Bagnoregio where elderly people kiss and pray to the statue of Christ.

Ascenzio Artemi, one of the oldest members of the Good Friday Procession Committee, readies the religious paintings that will be carried by volunteers during the Procession.

Dressed in historically accurate costumes, volunteer reenactors chat moments before the procession begins.

The Confraternity of Civita don their traditional white capes in preparation for the Good Friday mass and procession. As part of the annual celebration, the group will carry a statue of Christ from Civita to Bagnoregio and back.

Dressed in white, members of Civita's religious fraternity lead tourists and residents from Civita and Bagnoregio during the Good Friday Procession.