The patroness of Barile is the Madonna di Costantinopoli, celebrated on the Tuesday after Pentecost. Tradition says she appeared in a dream to a farmer, showing him the spot where, by digging, he would find her image painted on the tuff: there stands today the church dedicated to her, probably built in the mid-17th century, which keeps a 14th-century Byzantine fresco. The mother church too holds a 15th-century Byzantine painting of Our Lady of Constantinople and a 17th-century canvas of the Madonna pierced by seven daggers.
On Good Friday, instead, comes the re-enactment of the Passion, rich with gold in the Byzantine manner: gold on the crosses, on the white robes of the three Marys, on the fingers of the priests of the Sanhedrin. But above all gold on the gypsy, the character who according to popular tradition bought the nails for the crucifixion: from Christmas onward, the girl of Barile who plays her collects the gold jewellery of the town's families, until she builds herself a rich bodice with about ten kilos of antique jewels, and parades laughing and swaying before the bloodied Ecce Homo, giving out chickpeas and sugared almonds taken from a red basket that also holds the nails. Beside her walks the Moor, a symbol of evil: they are the only two figures who move through the procession with indifference, almost cheer, amid the general mourning.
