Overview
The Holy Week processions take place in the historic town of Mendrisio on the evenings of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, attracting over 10,000 spectators. On these occasions, the city’s lights are turned off and the streets are lit by the glow of ‘transparencies’: translucent paintings mounted on wooden frames and illuminated from within, made using a specific painting technique developed since the late 18th century. Nowadays, the 260 transparencies depict biblical scenes and symbols. The Thursday procession is devoted to staging the Passion and the Stations of the Cross and involves around 270 extras. The sounds of trumpets and drums set the pace and fill the streets with a contemplative atmosphere. The Good Friday procession is more austere: hundreds of children and adults march along carrying over 500 ceremonial objects, including 320 lanterns representing symbols of the Passion...
This record is imported from the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage public dataset as discovery metadata. ARED has not independently verified community authority, access protocols or local naming beyond the source record.
Community and Authority
- Communities
- Switzerland
- Languages
- Not specified in UNESCO dataset
- Cultural territories
- Switzerland
- Countries
- Switzerland
How the System Works
The Holy Week processions take place in the historic town of Mendrisio on the evenings of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, attracting over 10,000 spectators. On these occasions, the city’s lights are turned off and the streets are lit by the glow of ‘transparencies’: translucent paintings mounted on wooden frames and illuminated from...
Sources and Evidence
Imported from UNESCO DataHub dataset ich001. Field-level provenance is retained in the record metadata.
Field-Level Provenance
- title
- UNESCO DataHub field title_en
- preferredTitle
- UNESCO DataHub field title_fr
- summary
- UNESCO DataHub field description_en
- type
- UNESCO DataHub fields type_of_element_en and type_acronym
- countries
- UNESCO DataHub field countries, ISO codes resolved with ISO-3166 regional metadata
- categories
- ARED category inference from UNESCO concepts_primary_names, concepts_secondary_names and title
- relationships
- UNESCO concepts_primary_names, concepts_secondary_names, type fields and World Heritage links
- sourceUrl
- UNESCO DataHub field http_url_en
- rights
- UNESCO DataHub dataset metadata license and license_url
Original Source Metadata
Why This Record Is Credible
This public record is connected to 1 source and has been labelled Source Supported. ARED separates evidence sources from cultural authority so users can see both provenance and review limits.
Cultural Access
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Relationships
Review and Corrections
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