The Voice of the Battuti: Memories and piety in Medieval Serravalle

A historical narrative inspired by the confraternity of the Battuti, already active in Serravalle at the end of the 13th century, whose seat is the splendid Oratory of Saints Lawrence and Mark.

When I took part in my first procession, even my father frightened me: we moved as a group, with slow and heavy steps, paced by that tool—the discipline—with which everyone struck their chest. White robes, worn for penance, and whispered prayers along the entire route, all the way to the Church of Santa Maria, near the clock tower.

That day, I could no longer recognize the proud and resolute face of my father. He, like our fellow brothers, had always helped those in need. He had the courage of someone who does not let himself be overcome by the sorrow that life often inflicts on those who cannot defend themselves. He had spent many of his nights—since as far back as I could remember—bandaging the wounds of men who had tried to find food by any means, tending to women in labor through long feverish nights, and feeding children who were little more than skin and bones.

I had always accompanied my father to the Oratory of San Lorenzo and Marco, always watched him help the poor. As I grew older, between the errands he entrusted me with—fetching gauze, carrying water—I would often stop to gaze up at the main wall of the oratory. Fixing my eyes on the façade, they would meet the half-closed, suffering gaze of the crucified Christ, in the large fresco completed by some artist who had probably painted it before I was even born. When I finally saw in that painting a certain dignity in Christ’s suffering—a restrained sorrow in his lowered gaze, the look of someone who had accepted his fate—I decided to become a confratello of the Battuti myself.

But once I found myself in that slow march of affliction, I couldn’t understand what necessity pushed my father and the others to strike themselves with the discipline. Most of them writhed under the self-inflicted blows. I remember pretending to beat my chest with vehemence during that first procession, but in truth, I acted with all the cowardice I had in me, not putting any real force into my gestures. My father, who was certainly no fool, simply looked at me with disdain once we returned home—but in his silence, I sensed a trace of understanding.

Days and months passed; my father’s beard grayed, and I grew taller and stronger, yet our hands never ceased to give bread to the hungry, to wipe away blood from open wounds, and to offer shelter to those with no roof to shield them from the cold.

The suffering I saw in the eyes of the needy was never a reason for despair: my father, our fellow brothers, and I focused on the need at hand, acting quickly, without thinking too much.

Over the years, the processions began to take on a different meaning for me as well. It was precisely in the silence of our footsteps echoing through the narrow streets of Serravalle that affliction—that pain—emerged from some corner of the soul like a foreign body. The prayers we chanted as we walked served only to bring it to the surface.

And it was only then that I, my father, and our confratelli felt that living, tangible anguish becoming a part of us. Not knowing what to do with it, we tried in some way to rid ourselves of it—driving it away with the discipline. Over time, my blows became firm and resolute, and the more I struck myself, the freer I felt.

At the end of the procession, Mass awaited us in the Church of Santa Maria, known to most as Santa Maria dei Battuti. As we crossed the threshold, our hearts lighter, we did not pray for hunger, famine, and poverty to end. We prayed that God might always help us rid ourselves of that pain, which—unlike us—remained for the less fortunate, ever present, like an uncomfortable effigy.