The uccelletti of Saint Anthony Abbot, known locally as li cellittë, are small bird-shaped biscuits with stylised wings folded along the body in a crescent-moon shape. They are prepared in large quantities within households, and their making is generally entrusted to women, passed down through generations along the female line, from mother to daughter across generations. Made from a dry dough of flour, oil and white wine — sometimes with the addition of eggs — they are traditionally filled with grape jam, either plain or “enriched” with cinnamon, lemon zest, toasted chopped almonds and cocoa. Today, this filling is increasingly replaced with apple or other fruit jams. The bird’s eye may be marked with a silver sugar bead, a drop of chocolate or, in more traditional versions, a piece of almond, a coffee bean or a grain of black pepper.

Their preparation is closely tied to the ritual practice of sung questing in honour of Saint Anthony the Abbot, when groups of musicians and singers move through the village in the days leading up to January 17, visiting homes in the hamlets and rural areas to perform songs dedicated to the saint. These visits reaffirm kinship ties, neighbourly relations, friendships and the social bonds that shape the fabric of the community.

Extensive research carried out by the anthropologist Annunziata Taraschi across the municipality of Tossicia and more broadly in the Siciliana, Mavone and Vomano valleys, up to the slopes of the Gran Sasso, reveals a deeply rooted tradition of preparing uccelletti within the domestic sphere. They serve both as offerings to the questing groups and as celebratory sweets for household consumption or for sharing with visiting relatives and friends, as well as with those involved in preparing the woodpile for the Saint Anthony bonfire. Welcoming the groups is an honour for host families, who always provide refreshments along with food to take away — sausages, cured meats, cheeses, and sometimes live animals such as roosters or rabbits — together with the ever-present uccelletti, eaten on the spot or set aside in baskets as gifts for family members.

The preparation of these biscuits also resonates with the hagiographic dimension of the saint’s life and its visual representations. In devotional images widely circulated since the seventeenth century, Saint Anthony Abbot is often depicted surrounded by domestic animals, over which he exercises protection. Birds frequently appear in the sky above, recalling an episode narrated in the Life of Saint Paul the First Hermit, transmitted by Saint Jerome in the fourth century: the meeting between Saint Paul, long nourished by a raven bringing him bread, and Saint Anthony, who visited him in the Egyptian desert.

The preparation of this specific sweet finds its meaning in the hagiographic dimension and in the visual representations of the saint’s life and its most significant episodes. In most of the iconography circulated through devotional holy cards — small sacred images in use since the seventeenth century — Saint Anthony the Abbot is depicted surrounded by domestic animals, over which his broad protection extends. In the sky above the scene, one or more birds are often shown in flight, whose presence can be explained through an episode recounted in the Life of Saint Paul the First Hermit, transmitted by Saint Jerome in the second half of the fourth century: the well-known meeting between Saint Paul, who had lived in isolation for decades and was fed daily by a raven bringing him bread, and Saint Anthony the Abbot, who went to visit him in the desert of the Thebaid, in Egypt. On the occasion of the visit, as the two hermits were speaking, the raven brought them a double portion of bread to honour the arrival of the guest. Saint Paul himself reports this in the medieval retelling of the encounter by Jacobus de Voragine in the Legenda Aurea, where additional details are introduced. At Paul’s death, Anthony saw the hermit’s soul rise to heaven “in the form of a dove” or surrounded by angels, adding a further bird figure of strong symbolic value. The episode firmly establishes the image of the bird as a divine messenger providing sustenance for the saint in the desert, but also as a representation of contemplative saints, who rise spiritually above earthly matters through prayer and ascetic practice.

In other legends circulating in popular tradition, Saint Anthony the Abbot, who descended into hell to steal fire and give it to humankind, was aided by winged creatures that distracted the demons. This is echoed in the small cuts sometimes made on the biscuits, which seem to recall feathers but also flames, thus celebrating the triumph of fire and light over the darkness of winter. It is no coincidence that such bird-like representations recur in a devotional function alongside the saint across a variety of media, such as agricultural carts or decorated ceramics.

On the concrete level of ritual practice, the meeting between Saint Paul the Hermit and Saint Anthony the Abbot appears to take on varied and unexpected forms: if the group of questing singers effectively re-enacts the community of hermits led by Saint Anthony (the one who wears the habit), the proximity of the two feast days — celebrated on January 15 and 17 respectively — aligns the practice of sung questing with the period dedicated to Saint Paul. And just as the raven honoured the visiting saint by feeding them both, the main gifts offered to “Saint Anthony” and to the itinerant “hermits” inside the homes are precisely these bird-shaped biscuits, li cellittë, central elements of hospitality and bearers of wishes for life and providence.