LA FESTA DEGLI INNAMORATI - THE FEAST OF LOVERS
This may surprise you, but Italian Valentine's Day is only for couples - sweethearts, lovers, partners. So if you have an Italian who you thought you were friends with, but now you're getting a card or flowers, maybe he's thinking of you a different way.
Other than that, it's much like in the United States, a day for gifting your partner with romantic cards, poetry, flowers, chocolates - especially chocolate covered cherries, going out to dinner. And to imbibe in wine with dinner. It's a popular date for marriage proposals.
The Italians take credit for establishing the holiday to start. February 14th, however, turns out to be a celebration of the ancient, pagan Romans. The Queen of the Roman pantheon of Gods and Goddesses was Juno and she was celebrated as a patroness of women and of marriage.
About 800 years before the best candidate for Saint Valentine was born, this spring festival was also about fertility. February 15th was the feast of Lupercalia in Rome. The idea was not just to bring fertility to humans but also to crops and animals.
What did the pagan Romans do for their festivities? One story is that young men and women would draw names from an urn and whomever they picked by this method became their special friend for a year, a year in which they might decide to marry. Or perhaps that's a bit censored: Maybe they actually enjoyed each other for a year and before the year was up they had to marry.
No comments:
Post a Comment