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The celebration of Carnevale (Carnival) is very important in Italy. Unfortunately with the passing of time, younger generations are losing the meaning of it, but despite everything, it is still a very important celebration, not only for the taste of dressing up but also for the culinary specialties, made of delicious sweets, such as ravioli with cr...

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January 17th is the feast day of a universal Saint: Saint Anthony Abbot, to whom the deepest tradition, the sacred fire, is linked. This is the meaning of the numerous bonfires that every year are lit on this day in the Italian and European countryside. The propitiatory fire of fertility, protective and purifying, a fire that belongs to the past tr...

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In the North of Italy, in the month of December, the most felt feast by the population is on the day 13 when we celebrate Santa Lucia, the shortest day of the year, date from which the light begins to reappear. In general the week venerated in the North is the one which starts from December 8th, feast of the Immaculate Conception to December 13th....

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In Montedinove, an ancient village along the Valle Dell'Aso in the Sibillini Mountains in the province of Ascoli Piceno, in the Marche Region, every year for the feast of the dead women are celebrated through the pink apple (la mela rosa) of the Sibillini Mountains. Many people gather to shop for typical products of the land and obviously this smal...

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In the Canto XXI of Paradise, 106-111, Dante Alighieri the supreme Italian poet, through the mouth of Pier Damiani describes the area located between the two coasts, Tyrrhenian and Adriatic in the middle of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, not far from Florence, “where there are mountains so high that the thunder falls much lower.” There is the top of...

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On September 8, in San Lorenzo in the valley of the Viterbo countryside, the rite of passage of the Madonna di Torano takes place. A legend that is very much felt in the area and a mystical place. It is located about 2 kilometers from the town and an asphalt road leads us to end up in the square where the church stands. The territory is rich in arc...

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Understanding today's traditions, festivals, ceremonies, religious recurrences, is not only a strictly individual knowledge or an intellectual enrichment, but it is above all understanding rituals and previous cultic activities. The whole sphere referring to anthropological-religious activities are nothing but that useful baggage of a deeper knowle...

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There are two feasts dedicated to Santa Rosalia in Palermo. The whole month of September is a feast on the Sanctuary that represents the sacred mountain of the city, that is Montepellegrino. Many legends are told about this mountain, one of these is that of the dragon that terrorized the city. No one was able to defeat the monster, not even a giant...

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On June 24th the feast of San Giovanni is, more than a relic, like an Italian monument from an age before history, which the tooth of time has eroded but not destroyed. Together with Christmas and the Nativity of Mary, the feast of San Giovanni is the only Christian feast that do not celebrate the death, but the birth of a saint. Both Christmas and...

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The most famous feast related to snakes both in Italy and in the world is surely the feast of Cocullo, in the province of L'Aquila, in Abruzzo, which is celebrated on May 1st.  Famous are the images of the statue of St. Dominic wrapped by hundreds of snakes, with thousands of people following the procession and touching the snakes of the saint or h...

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