Domesticating the Turks, Staging Otherness. The Tradition of Embodying the Turks, the Parata dei Turchi of Potenza and Its Narration in 20th-Century Folkloric Descriptions

Abstract

The aim of the essay is to analyse the presence of Oriental characters in the patron saint’s Feast of San Gerardo, taking place in the city of Potenza on 29 May. After offering an insight into the integration of Oriental characters into Italian early modern culture, the paper will first focus on the ‘historicity’ of the Parata dei Turchi and its carnivalesque function. It will then move to the way in which the Turks were represented between the 19th and 20th centuries — that is, the period from which sources present it as an already long-established tradition — seeking to offer a contribution to the interpretation of the tradition of the parading of Turkish masks on the annual procession of San Gerardo.