Can social media replace a suspended rite? An example from central Italy

The article reflects on the digital behaviour of pilgrims at the Holy Trinity sanctuary in Vallepietra during the various Covid-19 lockdowns. It is an in-depth example of virtual ethnography or ethnography of the digital that began at the same time as the blockade was imposed. Thus, one of the first ethnographic accounts of ritual musical behaviour in the lock-down. The author wanted to investigate: Which strategies did the pilgrim enact to compensate the prohibition to visit the shrine? What role did music had? Did, and how, the web compensations affected the usual behaviour of pilgrims once returned to the shrine? It emerged that the Facebook page of the Brotherhood of Vallepietra devoted to the Holy Trinity became a strong tool of compensation were pilgrims posted several musical solo performances or recordings of previous pilgrimages. Although the ‘digital presence’ cannot replace the physical one, this experience created the need to signal the presence of the companies at the shrine also on the web, through ways that were consolidated during the first lock-down.