Giano Vetusto

Giano Vetusto stands at the foot of Monte Maggiore, the highest of the Trebulani mountains, and its name almost certainly comes from a temple of the god Janus that once stood hereabouts; the second word, Vetusto, meaning ancient, serves to tell it apart from Giano dell'Umbria. The village lives on olives, and within its territory lies Rocciano, once a hamlet and now uninhabited.

The traditions here are precise. At the feast of Saint Anthony, whose statue is carved entirely from pear wood, the raffle of the palm is held: an auction for the silk handkerchief tied to the palm the saint holds in his right hand, and winning it brings luck to the family — so much so that it can cost a great deal. On the first Sunday of May the pilgrimage of the Holy Saviour sets out instead, twenty-five kilometres along an old mountain route to the two sanctuaries on the summit of Monte Maggiore, led by two crosses, one male and one female, carried in turn; everyone has an elm staff with the bark incised and burnt in, and on the way back the groups beat their staffs on the ground while chanting the litanies. In the square there is also a marble slab for Dominick Pezzulo, an officer of the New York Port Authority, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center.