The feast of Saint Zopito in Loreto Aprutino is marked throughout by the participation in processions of a white ox accompanied by the sound of a bagpipe, decorated with great care and ridden by a child known as an angel.

It is structured in two distinct moments: a main celebration, still practised today, on Pentecost Sunday and Monday, in memory of the transfer of the relics of Saint Zopito the martyr from Penne to Loreto and the miracle of the kneeling of the ox on Pentecost Monday in 1711; an autumn festival, on 12 October, which has long since fallen out of use, in commemoration of the day of the saint’s martyrdom transmitted by the sources. The October feast, called ‘san Supinucce di vinnegne’ (‘St Zopituccio di vendemmia’), was a minor celebration and until the 1960s included a procession, the participation of the town band, a procession of farm carts decorated with vines and floral decorations and the suspension of work in the fields.

On Whit Sunday, the white ox is taken to a secluded area on the edge of the village, where it is carefully harnessed by its trainers and the people who have looked after it over the year. At the end of this elaborate preparation, the ox makes a long journey through the centre of the village, with the child on its back and the bagpiper in front, kneeling in front of the main churches. On the parvis of St Peter’s church, where the relics of the patron saint are kept, the genuflection is awaited by the parish priest for a blessing at the end of mass.

Following this, the animal is led into the inner courtyards of Palazzo Amorotti and Palazzo Valentini, in Via del Bajo, the main street of the historic centre where the imposing houses of Loreto Aprutino’s most important landowners are located, and who in the past directly managed the organisation of the ox procession in turn, in collaboration with the families of their settlers. At the same time, a procession of horses follows a mirror-image processional route through the town to succeed the ox in the ritual blessing in front of the church of San Pietro, in commemoration of the thanksgiving route that horse-drawn coachmen used to take on their return from their trading routes in the Kingdom of Naples to sell oil.

The following Monday, during the procession of the patron saint, the ox, prepared as on the previous day, waits in Piazza Garibaldi and kneels down as the statue of the saint passes by, then joins the procession and follows it on its slow return to the Depot at St Peter’s Church.