Traditions: Fall

The Festa della Madonna della Salute is an annual Venetian festival that celebrates the end of a terrible plague that killed about 1/3 of the people in Venice in the early 17th Century. The celebration begins with a procession from Piazza San Marco across a temporary floating bridge to the Basilica della Salute. Although this is a Catholic feast day, both Catholics and non-Catholics participate in this religious festival and pray for the good health of their family and friends. The ’gondolieri“ bring their oars to the basilica to be blessed. Vendors surrounding the church sell candles to be lit in the Basilica, as well as sweets and desserts for the people attending the festival.

The Feast of Santa Lucia, the patron saint of the eyes, is celebrated throughout Italy on December 13th. As legend has it: Lucia was from the town of Syracuse in Sicily. Her father died when she was a young girl, leaving her only with her sick mother. Lucia prayed to St. Agatha to cure her mother, Eutychia, and vowed to remain a virgin if her mother got better. Her mother was healed, and later arranged for Lucia to marry a pagan. Lucia refused and the groom reported her to the Emperor as being a Christian during a time when Christians were persecuted. Guards came to take her away, but they couldn’t move her. They tortured her and tore her eyes out before trying to burn her to death. Legend has it that they couldn’t burn her and that her eyesight was restored before the soldiers finally killed her with a sword.

The Feast of Santa Lucia is celebrated throughout Italy. Each town or region has a different tradition to celebrate this holiday:

		Sicilians do not eat anything made of wheat flour on Dec. 13th. They eat cuccia, which is made with boiled whole-wheat berries, ricotta cheese, chocolate and sugar. Sicilians claim that Santa Lucia interceded and helped end the famine in Sicily during the late 1500s. It was said that the people of Syracuse prayed to Santa Lucia on December 13th to end the famine and that later that day ships filled with grain arrived in the harbor of Syracuse and Palermo.
		In Venice, where Santa Lucia is buried in the Church of San Geremia, they eat fried cheese to celebrate the feast day.
		In many towns in Northern Italy, Santa Lucia comes on the eve of December 13th on a donkey bringing gifts to the children.
		In Siena, the feast of Santa Lucia is celebrated with an outdoor pottery fair.
		Italians generally celebrate this feast by lighting bonfires and holiday processions with torches.

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