🔔 The Italian Almanac

September 17

Stories and curiosities for September 17, from the Italy of a thousand bell towers.

Bell-tower rivalries

Gorgonzola is named after a town near Milan, but its capital is Novara

Italy's most famous blue cheese takes its name from Gorgonzola, a small town just east of Milan, where the historical record thickens from the fifteenth century onward; some push its birth all the way back to 879. Over the last century, however, the area around Novara, across the border in Piedmont, became its principal producer. The Lombard town keeps the name, Piedmont keeps the wheels: a bell-tower feud that gets served with the cheese course.

📍 Discover Gorgonzola

Today's tidbits

Italian records 2022

Nine centenarians and one 828-year family: the records of Perdasdefogu

The Melis family of Perdasdefogu, a mountain village in eastern Sardinia, is recorded as the longest-lived family in the world: in 2014 the eldest, Consola, was 107, and her eight siblings, all in their eighties and nineties, brought the combined count to 828 years. The village then went one better: in 2022, when a ninth centenarian joined the eight already living there, it earned a Guinness World Record as the most long-lived village on the planet. Here a hundredth birthday is not news; it is a ranking.

📍 Perdasdefogu →
On the table today

Schiacciata con l'uva, the Florentine sweet that lasts as long as the harvest

September in Florence has a smell of its own: schiacciata con l'uva, a sweet flatbread that appears only at grape-harvest time, when it used to be baked for Tuscany's country festivals. Tradition demands canaiola grapes, small berries full of seeds that crunch between your teeth, a variety of little use for winemaking and perfect for pressing into dough. Seedless versions have reached the shops, but the original is the one that crunches. When the harvest ends, the schiacciata disappears with it.

📍 Florence →

🎉 Celebrations today in… 3

3 towns with a guide celebrate their patron saint on September 17

Patron saint festival 📍 Villa d'Ogna

Feast of Saint Matthew

📅 Every year, on 17 September

On 17 September Villa d'Ogna celebrates Saint Matthew, apostle and evangelist; the hamlet of Ogna instead has a different patron, Saint Lawrence, celebrated on 6 August.

Patron saint festival 📍 Mafalda

Feast of Saint Valentine

📅 Every year, on 17 September

On 17 September Mafalda celebrates Saint Valentine; for the occasion the "Pe Le Ruv d'R'pald" food-and-wine walk is held through the historic centre, among stops offering typical dishes and local wine.

Patron saint festival 📍 Buttapietra

Feast of the Holy Cross

📅 Every year, on 17 September

On 17 September Buttapietra celebrates the Holy Cross; the town's parish church is dedicated to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.