San Biagio

It’s February and therefore time for the first festival of the year in Magenta.
Obviously falling on the 6th January Epiphany is technically the first festival but as it is wrapped up in Christmas and New Year doesn’t quite count for me. It probably counts for Italians.

San Biagio, as you are probably aware, is the patron saint of throat diseases. He apparently is very good at getting fish bones stuck in the throat loose. He was martyred in the third century and came from Armenia. At some point in the distant past his body ended up in Italy. His feast day is the 3rd February and somewhere along the line of tradition the blessing of the throats which was an original intention of Biagio has morphed into the blessing and eating of leftover Christmas Panettone.

Magenta is lucky enough to have a relic of Biagio which is safely stored with the Nuns in the convent. I think it’s a small piece of cloth, it is very small and stored in a cross which is shown once a year to the faithful and the faithful are able to kiss the relic. On the 3rd February. There is also a large market that takes up a large part of the town centre and at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, in front of San Martino church a ceremony of the blessing of the Panattone and a free slice of cake.

I am assured by a friend that the curing of bad throats is not true, it is just a tradition. I am as you can imagine greatly saddened by this as I feel throat cures could take a leap forward, but none the less I am over-excited by the first festival of the season.

I discover on the Monday before the Wednesday that Daughter in scuola primaria gets a day off for this, only Magenta, because we have a relic. Son, in scuola media however, does not which at 11years old is apparently SO UNFAIR.

Wednesday morning and having had a lovely little lie-in and dragged daughter away from the telly we wander around the market. The piazza can take a decent sized market but this spread out of the centre, towards the convent and random streets off the piazza. It was an uninspiring start of cleaning product stalls and standard market clothe stalls to be found every Monday at the market, although I was very tempted by some duster slippers.

A few chestnut stalls, strung like garlic started the more traditional products and then branched out into Sicilian sweet stalls with luscious fruits made from marzipan, cheese stalls from different regions of Italy and Salami stalls resplendent with Boar and Deer heads. Mixed in was a tractor corner, in a car park that we had never seen before, a rabbit stall that we hoped were for pets not food as they were uber cute bunnies and a chocolate stall that all looked like proper tools, with edible silver and cocoa powder used to give a realistic finish to the spanners and hammers. It took over an hour to wander round.

We passed the convent with the relic, but there was a queue to get inside so we carried on our way. Certain this was our one and only opportunity of the year to get inside where the Nuns live we completed the circuit and were back outside the convent just after midday when I knew everyone would be on their way home for lunch. No queue and so we were in. Small chapels I think are very atmospheric, and have often been built for a family so are ornate. This was no exception with the ceiling and walls all painted with scenes of Saints lives, and although I was unable to pick him out, I would guess Biagio was one of them.

Despite her sore throat Daughter refused to kiss the relic, but was prepared to light a candle and then we were invited by the cluster of nuns (collective noun possibly a rosary) to the gymnasium for a tombola. The convent doubles as a school, so fundraising opportunities abound.

Generosity being one of my strong points I paid for a single white ticket which was the cheapest available at €2 and we looked for number 379. Which after smiley Nun had searched turned out to be 6 (old dusty) small glasses for juice as the packaging informed us and a book on the National Parks of Italy. Not a tombola combination that immediately springs to mind; but the photos of the parks are lovely, although my quick flick through the book has not yet yielded a handy map of said parks. The glasses have been added to our increasing glass collection thanks to the fact that Nutella do a glass range and we have Pink Panther and Peanuts Nutella glasses for juice. They have been christened the Nun glasses.

As the tombola was obviously not a child’s present, Daughter was handed a pink balloon, which we both would have been happier with in the first place and would have been down on some clutter for the house as well.

We bumped into some friends who also had a balloon and discovered they had ‘won’ a cooker hood filter, so on balance I feel we did ok from the tombola.

So only one event left for San Biagio; the blessing of the panattone. So at 3.30 I skip over to the front of the basilica, to watch the proceedings. Don Mario our head priest was scurrying into the side door as I walked past so no rush.

The front of the basilica was full. A few trestle tables were laid out in front of the church steps, the local volunteer Fire Service were on standby to hold back the crowds and see fair play in the cake slices. The mayor of Magenta had his Italian official sash on and a van stood to one side with its back covered in tarpaulin. The make-up of the crowd fell into 2 camps. Old women mainly bedecked in fur and mothers with young children. A few men stood off to one side chatting, but it seemed to me they had just transferred their daily chat from the piazza to the basilica for variety.

I, like a good ‘I’ve lived here for nearly a year; I know how this goes’ non Italian, hustled my way centre and a few rows back and got my camera out. The mayor was waiting, the mayor’s wife was filming, the crowd was getting impatient and Don Mario wasn’t appearing. We (as in just the 4 of us) don’t call him ‘X factor Don’ for nothing; just as impatient turned to restless the doors opened and with Vestments being adjusted he had arrived.

As the mayor thanked us all for coming and IPER the supermarket for providing the leftover panattone, Don Mario looked out a suitable prayer in his missal; then taking the microphone he began.
We all made the sign of the cross and the Our Father was recited. Then raising his hands the blessing of the panattone was underway, he then turned and blessed the van, and the providers of the panattone IPER.

Another quick sign of the cross and it was over. The tarpaulin was thrown back and piccolo panattone’s were being dished out. A more unseemly scrum I have not seen in a long while, and we are Welsh rugby fans. The scene reminded me of pictures of Haiti that have been flashing across our screens recently. I was not prepared to put myself in that crush just for a slice of cake that was missing the all important topping of mascarpone, icing sugar and limoncello (all mixed together, scrumptious).
By ten to four I was back in the house and San Biagio is over for another year. I have left over Chocolate Christmas Cake; I should have taken it along.

Daughter’s sore throat was gone by the next day, there may be something in it!