Museo dei Misteri

The Museo dei Misteri in Campobasso preserves the processional structures known as ingegni. These supports for living sacred tableaux connect religious devotion with metalworking, sculpture and the collective effort of the bearers.

Why it matters

The tradition developed from earlier confraternal representations. In the eighteenth century Paolo Saverio Di Zinno and local blacksmiths created iron frameworks that could support figures appearing to float above wooden bases carried on shoulders.

What to notice

Without costumes and scenic decoration, the structures reveal a vertical iron axis and branching supports ending in harnesses. Their form allows the characteristic oscillation during movement. The thirteen ingegni are accompanied by costumes, photographs and film documenting the procession and the people who sustain it.

Context and history

Six of the eighteen documented eighteenth-century structures were destroyed in the earthquake of 1805. The surviving twelve were joined in 1959 by the Sacred Heart tableau, made by the Tucci cousins from a drawing attributed to Di Zinno. The museum opened in 2006, providing a dedicated home for a tradition closely associated with Campobasso's Corpus Domini celebrations.