Anywhere Italy

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.

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. 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. 2.Montecatini-TermeMontecatini-TermeSanta Barbara, 4 DecemberPistoia · TuscanyEleven thermal springs in a Liberty-style park at the foot of the Apennines, one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe inscribed by UNESCO in 2021.
  3. 3.CalvelloNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberPotenza · BasilicataA 730-meter ceramic town at the foot of Monte Venturino, working clay since 1200 when Benedictines from Faenza brought the wheel south.
  4. 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. 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.

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  1. 6.Roseto Capo SpulicoNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberCosenza · CalabriaA Frederician castle on a rock above the Ionian, a former Sybaris satellite city founded in the seventh century BC, Templar legend included.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 9.GesualdoNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberAvellino · CampaniaAn Irpinia village at 676 meters built around the castle where Carlo Gesualdo, prince of Venosa and madrigalist murderer, wrote his six books of madrigals.
  5. 10.MontesarchioNicola di Bari, 6 DecemberBenevento · CampaniaAncient Caudium at 300 meters in the Valle Caudina, the Roman defeat at the Forche Caudine still attached to the name two thousand years later.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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