Funerary wax mask

Description:

The find in question – a funerary wax mask with the relative pIaster cast of the 19th Century, belonged to a priest of Geraci who lived at the end of the Century, Don Paolo Verri – and it was retrieved by the form’s compiler in 1983, in an old house of Geraci; it was exposed for the first time to the public in the Ethno-anthropological Documentary Show of Arts, Crafts and Traditions of the citizens of Geraci “The memory of the past for a more human present” (August 1983/August 1984), near the premises of the Town Library.

The funerary wax mask, the only inside this territory, is part of an ancient and rare tradition of the citizens living in the Madonie, used inside the houses of bourgeois family and of the clergy. It was a way to respect the memory of a face still not totally corrupted by death, and thus to protect it during the days of the funeral and finally to remember his/her appearance over time.

It was performed through a plaster cast taken from the face of the dead and, later, the artisan funeral performed on the same mould the mask of wax, which was then completed with the colours of the deceased’s face and, finally, with the endorsement of the pieces of glass eyes.