At Fontanarossa feasts and fairs broke the monotonous but serene life of the village with bright notes of colour. The villagers waited first of all for the fairs (20 May and 19 September) that gathered in the “piazza” (the main square) and in the next roads merchants coming with their products and commodities from Bobbio, Ottone, Rovegno; there was much animation, couples of oxen, donkeys, “manzette” (young cows) carefully harnessed, so that the owners could cut a fine figure. On those occasions boys could taste the “canestrelli” (biscuits) (a penny the small ones, two the great ones, a Lire the string), the only dessert they really knew, as the “focaccia” was only for the day of St. Rocco and not for everyone. But all the families, still the poorest, for the patron feast had the rice cake (a savoury dish almost disappeared) and the delicious “egg pudding”.

The procession took place on 3 August and the statue was carried to the village and exposed to the veneration of the believers invoking the intercession of the Protomartyr for obtaining the desired rain on the fields. But this change did not appeal to the villagers, that, after having waited in vain for the rain in the August heat, protested against modern people that had decided to abandon the old saint (good and indulgent) choosing a too young saint, who did not know anything as he had not experience (despite of this he was proclaimed Saint!!) Just after the village feast, it was the harvest time, the crop feast.
They had a great deal to do in those days; they hardly worked in their yards where the crop was threshed by hand using beaters and “verziele” rotated in the air by experienced hands, hours and hours under the scorching sun, rhythmically beating on the ears of the sheaves carefully placed in layers on the floor carefully cleaned!
Later they had the first threshing machine by hand, always tiring but quicker. After the return of Giovanni Mangini (Nicola) from the America, the village took a big step forward: in fact he bought the first threshing machine with a piston engine. It was a great event because in few hours it completed the work of many days. After the threshing, they organized a cheerful lunch, often followed by a ball with choirs and dances up to late evening. Untiring workers but Christian believers, the Fonantarossesis spent the Sunday day at rest. After the holy celebrations, many of them went to the patron feasts in the near villages but girls had to come back not after the “Ave Maria” of the evening! Some people enjoyed themselves playing games of bowls while young people and girls preferred walking up to “Avascieli” resting in the shade of a great chestnut tree. Here they joked and sang and girls were courted with all due respect. The attendance of the young people to the crackers of St. Giovanni Battista day was particular and absolute: the evening before they prepared a big pole around which brushwoods and straw were piled to be set on fire the night of 24 June: the bondfire lasted for a long time and the sight of the other fires in the distance was really suggestive. The “masquerade” for Carnival, today disappeared, was a typical feast up to 80 years ago: particularly young people wore animal skins, coloured dresses, enormous and funny masks; in a group they went around the village collecting sweets and money offered by the villagers.
They laughed, shouted, played rudimentary drums and rattles and the noise (but not the happiness) stopped only when, late in the evening, the collected foods was eaten together with rice, wine and biting jokes.
Happy and joyful dances characterized the last day of Carnival and the day of Half Lent: All the villagers without distinction of age attended the ball. The Fontanarossesis, generally tall and slender people, were good dancers and they were known in the valley under the nickname of “dancers”. But today things have changed and, except the day of St. Rocco, these genuine and beautiful traditions only live in the memory of our elders.


Eddi Biggi