Feste
10 towns whose festa falls in the dead of winter
Comuni whose patron feast lands in December, January or February, verified against comune and diocese records. 10 towns shown, in calendar order through the cold months.
Table no. 52 · Ranked by festa · 10 towns
Every Italian town keeps one day for its patron, and the calendar does not ask whether the season is convenient. These comuni drew December, January and February: processions in coats, fireworks over cold stone, the bar doing its best week of the quarter.
A winter festa is the least performed version of the tradition. Nobody stages it for visitors because no visitors are expected. Dates are verified against comune and diocese records.
- 1.AlleronaAnsano di Siena, 1 DecemberTerni · UmbriaA stone borgo at 472 meters between the Paglia valley and the Valdichiana, an Orvieto outpost whose Monaldeschi castle fell to Charles V.
- 2.
Montecatini-TermeSanta Barbara, 4 DecemberPistoia · TuscanyEleven thermal springs in a Liberty-style park at the foot of the Apennines. - 3.CalvelloNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberPotenza · BasilicataA 730-meter ceramic town working clay since 1200, when Benedictines from Faenza brought the wheel south.
- 4.RivelloNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberPotenza · BasilicataA 479-meter ridge above the Noce valley where Lombards and Byzantines lived side by side, holding Latin and Greek rites until the seventeenth century.
- 5.MendicinoNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberCosenza · CalabriaA silk-mill village at the foot of Monte Cocuzzo, ten kilometers from Cosenza, where water still drives the old spinning wheels.
- 6.Roseto Capo SpulicoNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberCosenza · CalabriaA castle on a rock above the Ionian, in a village that began as a satellite of Sybaris in the seventh century BC.
- 7.AsceaNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberSalerno · CampaniaTwo villages, a hilltown at 230 meters and a Cilento marina, with Parmenides and Zeno's Eleatic school in the ruins of Greek Velia below.
- 8.Cusano MutriNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberBenevento · CampaniaA Sannio hill borgo at 475 meters on the south face of the Matese, the only town in the area spared by the 1688 earthquake.
- 9.GesualdoNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberAvellino · CampaniaAn Irpinia village at 676 meters built around the castle of the prince of Venosa, madrigalist and murderer.
- 10.MontesarchioNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberBenevento · CampaniaAncient Caudium at 300 meters, a Roman defeat still attached to the name two thousand years later.
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