Patron saint festival In 122 days
Feast of Saints Faustinus and Jovita
📅 Every year, on 15 February
On 15 February Monte Isola celebrates its patrons Saints Faustinus and Jovita; a local tradition is drying fish in the sun on wooden arches.
Monte Isola is the largest lake island in Italy, and no, it is not the largest in Europe: Finland and lake Ladoga have far bigger ones. The mountain that gives it its name reaches 600 metres, and around it lie twelve hamlets, from the farming villages high up to the fishermen's villages on the shore. Until 1929 there were two comuni, Siviano and Peschiera Maraglio: then they became one and took the island's name. On the southern coast, between Peschiera Maraglio and Sensole, stand the olive trees: Sensole comes from the Latin Sinus olis, the inlet of the oil.
Fishing nets were made here: until the nineteen-seventies Monte Isola was one of the world's leading producers, and then Japanese industrial competition arrived. Of the trade there remains the craft work at Peschiera Maraglio, and there remains a surname: the fish were dried in the sun on wooden arches, and Archetti — little arches — is the commonest surname on the island. At Carzano, every five years, they hold the feast of Santa Croce: the village fills with handmade flowers and pine branches, and the tradition was born in 1836 to celebrate the end of a cholera epidemic.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Monte Isola 1
No events match these filters.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Monte Isola
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Monte Isola, but an easy day trip away.
Museo diocesano di Rieti 📍 Rieti · 17 km Rieti's diocesan museum, a route through baptistery, sacristies, lapidarium and the Papal Palace gallery. Oratorio di San Pietro martire 📍 Rieti · 17 km The chapel of Rieti's San Domenico convent with the Torresani brothers' Last Judgement, rarely open. Amiternum 📍 L'Aquila · 22 km Sallust's Sabine city under the fields: a theatre, an amphitheatre and a whole Amiternum never excavated. chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo 📍 L'Aquila · 23 km Romanesque church at San Vittorino with fifth-century catacombs, near ancient Amiternum. Teatro romano di Amiternum 📍 L'Aquila · 22 km Augustan theatre of ancient Amiternum, near San Vittorino, with opus reticulatum walls.