The Italian Almanac for October 6: stories and curiosities

Impossible geography

Italy's lowest point is not in a cave: it lies in Jolanda di Savoia, 3.44 metres below the sea

At Corte delle Magoghe, in the hamlet of Le Contane in Jolanda di Savoia, near Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna, the ground sits 3 metres and 44 centimetres below sea level: the lowest point in Italy, in open plain, with no cave or chasm to explain it. The whole municipality averages one metre above the sea. Until the 1800s this was marsh: draining began in 1882 under the Bonifiche Ferraresi company, and on the land taken from the water a village called Le Venezie was founded in 1903. The present name dates from 1911, when Princess Jolanda, eldest daughter of King Vittorio Emanuele III, came to visit. Today the village has 2,641 inhabitants and still carries her name.

📍 Discover Jolanda di Savoia

Today's tidbits

Busted myths

Grappa is not named after Monte Grappa: the word is a Lombard grape stalk, and Bassano only took the mountain's name in 1928

It looks obvious: grappa must be named after Monte Grappa, the mountain above Bassano in the Veneto. It isn't. Italian adopted the Lombard word “grapa”, originally the grape stalk: the name comes from the pomace and has nothing to do with the mountain or with Bassano del Grappa. What muddles things is the town's own history, which is full of grappa: in 1779 the Nardini distillery opened there, the oldest in Italy, whose steam still opened modern distilling. But the town was called Bassano Veneto: only in 1928, after the Great War fought on the Grappa massif, did the fascist government change its name. The mountain came later; the grappa was already there.

📍 Bassano del Grappa →

Italian records

The chestnut of Sant'Alfio measured 57.9 metres around in 1780: it is in the Guinness book and is 2,200 years old

On the eastern slopes of Etna, in Sant'Alfio in Sicily, the Castagno dei Cento Cavalli has been protected by royal decree since 1745. In 1780 it measured 57.9 metres around, limbs included, and on that survey Guinness World Records lists it as the largest tree in the world. Today the trunk runs to about 23 metres; a 2022 study by the research body CREA put its age at 2,200 years, against earlier guesses of 2,000 to 4,000, perhaps the oldest tree in Europe. The name comes from a Queen Giovanna, of Aragon or of Anjou depending on the teller, who by legend sheltered under its crown with a hundred knights and ladies in a storm: except that she almost certainly never set foot in Sicily.

📍 Sant'Alfio →

🎉 Celebrations today in… 2

2 towns with a guide celebrate their patron saint on October 6

Other saints of the day 2

Serra San BrunoBeata Vergine Maria Addolorata · Calabria Sadalisan Valentino · Sardinia

Patron saint festival 📍 Montemesola

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

📅 Every year, on 6 and 7 October

On 6 and 7 October Montemesola celebrates its patron Our Lady of the Rosary; the town is also known for the Sagra delle fave e cicoria, in the first week of August.

Patron saint festival 📍 Serra San Bruno

Feast of Saint Bruno of Cologne

📅 Every year, on 6 October

On 6 October Serra San Bruno celebrates its patron Saint Bruno of Cologne, with a procession of his silver bust; the town, which bears the saint's name, hosts the Charterhouse dedicated to him within the Parco naturale delle Serre.

Patron saint festival 📍 Sadali

Feast of Saint Valentine

📅 Every year, on 6 October

On 6 October Sadali celebrates its patron Saint Valentine; the town also holds an important culurgionis festival in the first week of August.