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🔔 The Italian Almanac

October 3

Stories and curiosities for October 3, from the Italy of a thousand bell towers.

Vanished Italy 📅 1831

Ferdinandea, the island that rose off Sciacca in 1831: three flags, seven names, five months of life

In July 1831 an underwater volcano pushed an island out of the sea 30 km off Sciacca, in southern Sicily: fully emerged by 12 July, by August it was four kilometres around and 60 metres high. The British planted a flag and called it Graham, the French named it Iulia, Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies claimed it on 17 August as Ferdinandea. But it was tephrite, a rock the waves crumble: on 7 November it stood twenty metres high, on 8 December it was gone. What remains are seven names and the Graham Bank, 6.9 metres below the surface, which in 1986 a US missile mistook for a Libyan submarine.

📍 Discover Sciacca

Today's tidbits

Bell-tower rivalries

Parma or San Daniele: Italy's ham rivalry comes down to one extra month and a trotter

Prosciutto di Parma is made across a strip of its province south of the Via Emilia, by around 134 producers. San Daniele is different: every step, from fresh leg to cured ham, must happen inside one municipality, San Daniele del Friuli, a town of 7,904 people on a hill above the Tagliamento in north-eastern Italy. The rules demand legs of at least 12 kg with the trotter still attached, which helps drain moisture, a pressing stage found only in San Daniele, and thirteen months of ageing, one more than Parma. Three ingredients: Italian pork, sea salt and the local microclimate. In 2012 that one town turned out 2,646,000 hams, worth 345 million euros.

📍 San Daniele del Friuli →
Impossible geography

On Monte Forno above Tarvisio you can stand in Italy, Austria and Slovenia at the same time

At 1,508 metres in the Karawanks, a stone marker sits where three countries touch: Monte Forno, Dreiländereck or Ofen to the Austrians, Peč to the Slovenes, Mont Fuar in Friulian. The Italian side belongs to Tarvisio, in the far north-east of Italy, one of only four Italian municipalities bordering two foreign states: you walk up from the trails of Fusine in Valromana, Austria offers a chairlift from Arnoldstein, the Slovene route starts at Rateče. The summit has been a tripoint since 1924, but the neighbours kept changing: the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Nazi Germany, all German from 1943 to 1945, then socialist Yugoslavia and Slovenia since 1991.

📍 Tarvisio →

🎉 Celebrations today in… 1

1 towns with a guide celebrate their patron saint on October 3

Other saints of the day 1

Fucecchiosan Candido · Tuscany
Patron saint festival 📍 Fucecchio

Feast of Saint Candidus

📅 Every year, on 3 October

On 3 October Fucecchio celebrates its patron Saint Candidus; the town is also known for the Palio di Fucecchio, held among 14 districts on the second-to-last Sunday of May.

Patron saint festival 📍 Villanovaforru

Feast of Saint Francis

📅 Every year, on 3 and 4 October

On 3 and 4 October Villanovaforru venerates its patron Saint Francis, to whom the town's parish church is dedicated; residents are also devoted to Saint Marina of Orense, in whose honour elderly women grow basil blessed during her feast.

Patron saint festival 📍 Drapia

Feast of Saint Sergius the Martyr

📅 Every year, on the Saturday and first Sunday of October

Drapia celebrates its patron Saint Sergius the Martyr on the first Sunday of October and the preceding Saturday, together with Saint Michael; the town also preserves the Castello Galluppi.

Patron saint festival In 342 days 📍 Carbonate

Our Lady of the Assumption, celebrated in October

📅 Every year, in October for Our Lady of the Rosary, though the liturgical date is 15 August

Carbonate celebrates its patron, Our Lady of the Assumption, in October, on the occasion of Our Lady of the Rosary, although the patronal feast liturgically falls on 15 August.