To the co-patroness of the city, Maria SS. Assunta, the most important solemnity of the year is dedicated on the 15th of August, ‘A Vara di Randazzo. Preceded, on the evening of the 14th, by the procession with the simulacrum of the sleeping Madonna, the fercolo della Vara moves from the apses of S. Maria on August 15th, along the entire via Umberto I. Its invention can be placed towards the second half of the 16th century.
It is an allegorical-triumphal chariot, almost 20 meters high, which represents, on several superimposed floors the Marian Mysteries of Death, Assumption and Coronation, with about 30 living characters, boys and girls, who have been subjected to a rigorous preventive fast, and they depict the Madonna, the Trinity, the Apostles, Angels and Saints. It is difficult to describe, if you have not witnessed it, the emotion you feel as the cart advances in all its mass, along the main street in a flash of mirrors, pulled by large ropes, while the children sing an ancient traditional hymn.
