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I called a Saint and nine of them came The Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas came The flavours and the scents of the country in autumn |
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IIn the autumn it seems that the sun and the objects have another colour the clouds another shape The air of another flavour; it seems that the nature has a tone , a shape of her own (Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone) |
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Text By Maria Concetta Nicolai Photo by Luciano D’Angelo |
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The Spaces of The Memory |
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The dimming light, the country spreading in the silence, a melancholy lost along the far away line of the horizon make the autumn the most spiritual season of the year.
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“In the autumn it seems that the sun and the objects have another colour the clouds another shape the air another flavour, it seems that the nature has a tone, a shape of her own” In this way Leopardi poet of sublime melancholy looked and this season of transparent and dimming lights , of enlarged much more by the silence of stories at the border of the wood.
Two specific autumnal operations, the vintage and the collection of olives, called back to the native village the bourgeoisie from the town. The patriarchal house was being opened and even the children had a short vacation from school. Everybody came back to the village on the first day of November to honour the dead. It was a pause from the town life. The long forgotten music and noises of the country could be perceived by the ear still lying in bed.
You could smell the autumn from the roasted barley, the quinces under the cinders. The street bustled with people who had already made wine and were ready to pick up olives and make oil.
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The elder in the family headed these operations. Very often the children followed him, their curiosity aroused by the secrets of the operations themselves.
It was time of the dignified sorrow of the cemeteries. At dusk candles were left behind the windows, one candle for each beloved soul. Beggars went door to door reminding the day of anger and of the Universal Judgement.
A laid table was left for the beloved dead who would come back for a short visit to the house where they had lived.
All is gone. The Vintage and the Collection of olives have become an industrial cooperation, but, still autumn remains, with its misty north silence coming down to the Mediterranean latitudes, bringing with them traces of Celtic and Lombard rites of so many rural traditions, the best season to discover again the country.
You can discover again the pleasures of Autumn during a short holiday spent in a farmhouse taking a walk in the just ploughed fields, among the colours of the vineyards the silver olive groves. In the distance the Sleeping Beauty and the Giant are looming. Now the return home acquires the value of the rediscovered quiet, of the heat of sentiments, the force of passion which lasts the whole life.
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| Autumn Portrait |
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The Fire and The Spouse |
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St. Martin’s feast, in Scanno, preserve structure and symbolic expressions which lead to the archetype of the passage and re-founding rites. |
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The young wait for the fire to consume all the braches and then handle to the bride the “palancone”. |
St. Martin’s feast is characterised by moments of happiness and cheerfulness and Abruzzo ,like any other region follows the rule.
On the Eve of the feast noisy begging groups go from door to door, holding a big void pumpkin with a candle inside it. They sing funny songs addressed to unhappy husbands and drinking the new wine and eat roast sausages, and sucking pig.
Probably this feast goes back to the Celtic New Year which the Lombard domination spread all over the north Italy and even in our region.
Scanno gives to this feast a characteristic atmosphere involving everybody.
Since the first hours of the afternoon groups of young men and women bustle the streets of the village collecting wood for the evening fire. Years ago the feast was celebrated only in the hamlet of Decontra. The legends tells that the Saint took shelter in one of the caves of the mountain.
Around the various fires you can live an atmosphere of great happiness, enjoyment and thoughtlessness with songs, dances, and jars of wine passed from one to another. There is a sort of competition among the various fires called “Glorie”.
The fire seen as a liturgical and cult element must be at the origin of this feast. All the boys of the village paint heir faces with the black of the soot before starting to dance around the fire shaking big bells and anything that can cause noise.
Rituals of fertility are represented in all these “Glorie”, especially by the tradition of giving to the newly brides the “Palancone” burned in the fire in order to receive from them swine and sausages which are eaten later in the square by all the groups in order to have a good time. The children are given a cake with a coin hidden inside.
The newly bride represents the Great Mother sacrificed for the common welfare, while the children represent the connection between the world of men and the one of the eternal return to the divine. youth.
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The building of the “Gloria” on the altar of St. Martin’s caves |
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| Autumn Portrait |
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In Autumn the pastoral melancholy rediscovers the family geography and the intimacy of the affections in the prayer and the rite |
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St. Nicholas’ bust showed to the Believers’ devotion |
The Transhumance rules the pastoral and peasant life in Abruzzo. When the first snow covers the mountains all the shepherds set off towards the Southern region of Puglia and there they remain all the winter long to come up again at the beginning of Spring.
The Tratturo (sheep-track) is the leading way to the South. Along this way, trampled for centuries by the Abruzzese herds, there were hundreds of churches and the most famous one was the great sanctuary of Bari linked to the great Bishop of Mira, St. Nicholas. The Saint’s houses were important economic places. One of these houses, deposit of knowledge and popular rituals , is in Pollutri, a village at the border of the Tratturo Magno which from L’Aquila leads to Foggia. In Pollutri the Saint Bishop of Mira is celebrated twice a year on the first Sunday of May and the 6th of December.
On the Eve of the 6th of December feverish preparations are being made for the feast. The girls of the village make the dough on long tables; it is leavened and then small loaves of bread, called “panicelle” are made of it. On them is impressed the old and sacred seal of the Saint. The day after, in the procession, a precious silver bust of the Saint is carried out along the streets of the village.
In the afternoon the rite of the cooking of the broad beans is performed. Seven big pots full of broad beans, previously softened in water, are prepared in the square by the deputies of the feast. Everybody supports the pot of his own quarter. In fact the pot boiling first will receive a prize and, above all, the felicitations from all the inhabitants of the village.
The broad beans, once cooked, are delivered together with the “panicelle” and eaten just for devotion. The legend recites that St. Nicholas in a moment of big famine satisfied everybody’s hunger multiplying a handful of broad beans.
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The ritual cooking of the broad beans in the square of Pollutri |
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| Autumn Portrait |
The flavours and the scents of the country in autumn
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Il Casale delle Querce. Nocciano (Pe). Tel. +39 085 47115 - +39 085 847609.
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Le Lepri. Castilenti (Te). Tel. +39 0861 996245.
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Il Melograno. Cellino Attanasio (Te). Tel. +39 0861 659041.
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Il Regno dei Sogni. Colledara (Te). Tel. +39 0861 698253.
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La Quercia. Colledara (Te). Tel. +39 0861 698350 - +39 347 3734670.
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Boscherini. Isola del Gran Sasso (Te). Tel. +39 0861 975437.
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I Vaccari. Isola del Gran Sasso (Te). Tel. 0861 975045.
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San Giovanni ad Insulam. Isola del Gran Sasso (Te). Tel. +39 0861 210211 - +39 0861 975247.
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I Tre Comignoli. Tossicia (Te). Tel. +39 0861 593147.
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