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🔔 The Italian Almanac

October 30

Stories and curiosities for October 30, from the Italy of a thousand bell towers.

On the table today

Vino novello is uncorked on 30 October, and Bardolino celebrates it in November

In Italy, vino novello is on sale from 00.01 on 30 October to 31 December; until 2012 the date was 6 November. Beaujolais nouveau, its French cousin, comes out on the third Thursday of November instead. The secret is carbonic maceration: a fruity, soft wine with very low tannins, ready at once and with no structure for ageing. Italian law requires it on at least 40% of the grapes, sets a minimum of 11% alcohol and at most 10 grams of sugar per litre, and allows some sixty grape varieties, against the French Gamay alone. On the Verona shore of Lake Garda, Bardolino has a Novello type in its appellation, and the town gives the young wine a festival in November.

📍 Discover Bardolino

Today's tidbits

Place names 1564

Terra del Sole, the town the Medici built from nothing that later gave its name to Castrocaro

On 8 December 1564, a chronicle notes, work began on “la nova Terra del Sole” with procession and solemn mass. Cosimo I de' Medici wanted a fortress on the border with the Papal States and capital of Florentine Romagna, the Tuscan-ruled corner of Romagna: a rectangular plan, walls 2 kilometres and 87 metres long, the Fiorentina and Romana gates; in 1579 the bargello, judge and court moved there from Castrocaro. The name evokes the sun, emblem of Medici rule. The citadel ended up naming the whole municipality: from 1783 to 1871 it was just Terra del Sole, then Terra del Sole e Castrocaro; in 1925 the order flipped, and since 1962 the comune is Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole.

📍 Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole →
Vanished Italy 1968

Gibellina vecchia, the town wiped out by an earthquake and covered in white concrete by Alberto Burri

On 14 and 15 January 1968 the Belice earthquake razed Gibellina, in western Sicily: hundreds dead, over 100,000 homeless. Gibellina rose again some twenty kilometres away, and mayor Ludovico Corrao called in the artists. Alberto Burri, facing the rubble: “I almost wanted to cry, and the idea came at once”. In the mid-1980s he had the ruins compacted and coated in white concrete: blocks about 1.60 metres high, fissures two to three metres wide along the streets of the old town. In 1989 the money ran out; the Cretto was finished only in 2015: about 80,000 square metres, one of the largest works of art in the world. The streets are still there, the houses are not.

📍 Gibellina →

🎉 Celebrations today in… 7

7 towns with a guide celebrate their patron saint on October 30

San Felice 2

Massa MartanaUmbria Giano dell'UmbriaUmbria

San Saturnino 2

CagliariSardinia IsiliSardinia

Other saints of the day 3

Sambucisan Celso · Lazio SciscianoSan Germano San Martino (a livello frazionale) · Campania Casiersan Teonisto e Cc.Mm · Veneto
Patron saint festival In 4 days 📍 Sambuci

Feast of Saint Celsus

📅 Every year, on 30 October

On 30 October Sambuci celebrates its patron Saint Celsus; the town also preserves the Convento di San Francesco.

Patron saint festival In 4 days 📍 Cagliari

Feast of Saint Saturninus

📅 Every year, on 30 October

On 30 October Cagliari celebrates Saint Saturninus, a Cagliari martyr of 304. The city's oldest church is dedicated to him, part of one of the most important early Christian complexes in Sardinia.

Patron saint festival In 4 days 📍 Isili

Feast of Saint Saturninus

📅 Every year, on 30 October

On 30 October Isili celebrates its patron Saint Saturninus; the town hosts the Museum of Copper and Textile Art.