Festival of St John

A brief history of the Festa di San Giovanni (Festival of St John) celebrated in Florence on the 24th June each year

In The Power of the Wouivre: Fiorenza Guidaloste attends the Festa di San Giovanni. Every year on the 24th June, the Florentines celebrate their patron saint, San Giovanni, or St John the Baptist at the Festival of St John (Festa di San Giovanni). The first official mention of the celebrations were marked as being held since 1283, by contemporary historical chronicler Giovanni Villani. However, they are alluded to having been held earlier than that, in Dante’s Paradise when Cacciaguida (Dante’s great, great grandfather who died 1148) mentions the Palio by way of the place of his birth, being ”in the last sixth [of the city] where your annual game is run’ .

The Palio

The game he mentions was the culmination of the day’s festivities and was known as the Palio dei Barberi – a race of pure-breed Berber horses, popular with the nobility at the time – that ran across the city from west to east, with a pallium (a long piece of sumptuously embroidered or brocaded cloth) as the prize.

This type of race, or Palio on account of the pallium prize, was a common occurrence throughout Italy. Nowadays, most people may think only of the famous Palio of Siena, which is raced around the Campo Square twice a year on 2nd July and 15th August to celebrate the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of Siena. The race, as we know it now, began in the 1600s, but its origins were much earlier in the early 1200s when the race was known as the Palio alla Lunga and was raced, also with Berber horses, across the city from the gates to the Duomo (Cathedral). Although this is the most famous Palio still in existence today, in the Middle Ages, many towns were running such races in honour of their own patron saints.

In Florence this was St John the Baptist, and the celebration took place on 24th June. As mentioned, there is some speculation as to when the first festival and Palio of San Giovanni was held. Villani first mentions a gathering of nobles in 1283 and a race around the besieged city of Arrezzo in 1288. However, given the prevalence of horse races of this kind to celebrate saints in general, and considering that St John was the patron saint of Florence since the 3rd century, and the Baptistry was consecrated in his name in 1059 as the cathedral of Florence (and then made the official baptistry of the city in 1128), it does not seem too far a stretch to imagine that a celebration was happening much earlier than the 1280s, and that a Palio, or horse race, would have been a likely culmination of this. Pietro Gori, an early 20th century historian, suggests the Festival of St John was being celebrated as early as the 7th century.

Festival Preparations

The Festival of St John was much more than just a single day’s event. Preparations would likely have started a couple of months before. The pallium (prize cloth), and servants’ robes would need to be stitched, flag poles and trumpets had to be made or prepared. There were banquet invitations to send out and of course preparations for the banquets and the race itself, not least having the Berber horses shipped into the city in advance.

If you’ve ever prepared for a wedding, or seen one being organised, you can imagine the equivalent of every family in the town simultaneously organising their own event, within the context of a much larger community event also occurring. Everyone would have been busy preparing for the day! The Podestà would have had heralds notify the citizens, and in particular the nobility, the commune officials and all those who were expected to bring expensive cloth, wax tributes, silver or other offerings to the Baptistry of St John. Eight days prior to the event, the guilds would be expected to nominate those men who would receive the offerings on the morning of the 24th.

As well as general festivities and banquets, people might actually choose to have their own wedding celebrations on the Festival of St John, as an auspicious day. Guests would be invited in from neighbouring Tuscan towns, and from Calendimaggio (May Day) right up until the Festival of St John, the city would be decorated, and the streets scattered with flowers, and there would be public entertainment in the form of jousts, games, music and dance, and banquets in many a noble home.

The Eve of the Festival of St John

The eve of the Feast Day was considered to be a night of magic and supernatural powers. Bonfires would be lit in all corners of the town and in the surrounding countryside. Though, as you can imagine, with all the wooden dwellings around, this was a considerable fire hazard so fire wardens were on duty throughout the night to watch over the bonfires and prevent the fire from spreading. From dusk to dawn, church bells would ring to ward off witches and prevent them from making their potions or casting their spells. It was also believed that the presumed bewitched, in particular children, could be cured by boiling their clothing – pushing the cloths repeatedly into the boiling water with pitchforks. If evil existed in the person, then there would come 3 knocks at the door which would be the witch, bound by magic to release the bewitched from their spell. However, this ritual was deeply heretic and would incur excommunication so it is not known just how widespread it was. On the same night young girls and widows would ask St John to show them if they were destined to marry in the coming year and who their husband was to be.

A Public Holiday

The day itself was a public holiday for the town. Unlike today’s public holidays, this was a local and not a national holiday so, although the townsfolk themselves were not expected to work, and indeed would be fined if found working without permission, there is nothing to say that outsiders from neighbouring towns might not come in and sell their wares as they would still be allowed to work under the laws of their own towns and cities. The day was both spiritual and religious, in dedication to the saint, and secular, as a testament to the organisation and power of the commune who would want to demonstrate this in the processions and entertainment that they would put on throughout the day. Mass would be held as usual but possibly more elaborately and more often than on a normal day. As previously mentioned, offerings were taken by hand or on floats to the Baptistry. These would range from small wax candles to huge wax votives decorated with paper effigies and wooden figures. The enormous cloth banners (pallii) would would be carried on tall poles, on horseback. These were around 8m high so you can imagine they were both cumbersome to carry but also visible from all around. The overall aspect of the day would have been like a deeply religious carnival!

Nowadays, the 24th of June is still a public holiday in Florence, though bars and restaurants are mostly open as usual since the event brings in many tourists. In the morning a historical procession in Renaissance period costume, complete with standard bearers, drummers and trumpeters, enters the Duomo Square and continues past the Duomo, down Via Calzaiuoli to the Piazza della Signoria where they collect large votive candles from the Palazzo Vecchio to transport back to the Baptistry. After the candles are blessed in the Baptistry, they are delivered to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore opposite where they are lit ready for the mass that is held and broadcast on screens to everyone in the square. Later in the day, there is often a game of historic calcio fiorentino, an early form of football that originated in the Middle Ages. Though this was not yet played in the time of Guidaloste’s Fiorenza. In the evening today, rather than burn bonfires throughout the city, a firework display is set off above the River Arno. The Festival of St John, or as they call it in Florence, La Festa di San Giovanni, is a celebration centuries old, that will no doubt continue for centuries to come.