Zerfaliu

In Zerfaliu the feasts are organised by age group. The great one, dedicated to the Transfigured Christ who is the patron, is run by the committee of the fifty-year-olds; the second, for Saint Pio, by the committee of the forty-year-olds. The patron is celebrated on 6 August, but it starts on the evening of the 5th, and that eve has a name of its own, S'Arrassignu; on the evening of the 5th, too, the parish priest says mass in memory of the committee's dead, that is of those of the same age group who are no longer here. The procession, after mass, is accompanied by a chant in Sardinian called Coggius. The feast of Saint Pio falls on 22 and 23 September, with mass celebrated in the square named after him.

The village lies in the Campidano of Oristano and lives on what the land gives: it is an important centre for citrus fruit and for wine, vernaccia in particular, and the third feast of the year is precisely the citrus fair, held between February and March. In Sardinian Zerfaliu is Tzorfolìu, and the variety spoken is Campidanese of Oristano. In the territory are the nuraghi Janas, Mesu and Cagotti, a giants' tomb at Serraebrutzu and, on the Tirso, the dam at Pintus. As for written history, it is that of half the Oristano country: the judicate of Arborea, then the marquisate of Oristano from 1420, then Aragonese rule after the defeat of Leonardo Alagon in 1478, and finally, around 1767, the marquisate of Arcais, from whose lords the village redeemed itself in 1839.