The Good Friday processions in Penne were started in 1570 by a fraternity based in the church of the Annunziata who acted as volunteer escorts and comforters for prisoners being taken to the scaffold. The modern processions have inherited the drama and sombre nature of these beginnings.
On Good Friday morning the statue of Mary is brought from the cathedral to the church of the Annunziata where the wooden figure of the body of Christ is waiting. At dusk the two statues are carried separately through the town and back to the cathedral escorted by dramatically hooded figures, the town brass band and the choir of the Miserere, to the light of candles and torches. The event is serious and atmospheric, not a creation for tourists.