The Exultet in Southern Italy

The Exultet rolls of southern Italy are parchment scrolls containing text and music for the blessing of the great Easter candle, as well as magnificent illustrations which reveal many layers of influence and hundreds of years of changing liturgical, historical, political, and cultural traditions of southern Italy in the middle ages. The Exultet in Southern Italy provides a broad perspective on this phenomenon, with studies of text, music and ceremonial, with a special focus on the manufacture and purpose of the Exultets. The author introduces a new and controversial argument as to how the rolls, which were often turned upside down with respect to the text, were viewed.