Rites and social practices
We, the pilgrims
The almsgiving of Saint Anthony the Abbot in Fano Adriano
From house to house, winding their way through the village’s narrow, often snow-covered alleyways, the group of carol singers brings their devotional songs at dusk. They enter the homes, greet those who welcome them, and recount through music the stories of Saint Anthony the Abbot, the powerful patron saint of stables and domestic animals, venerated by farmers and livestock breeders. The fire in the hearth or the warmth of refreshments warms every encounter; wine and biscuits help the ‘beggars’ to continue their rounds until late into the night.
“Pilgrims as we are, we set out across the world / visiting the monasteries, in honour of Saint Anthony the Abbot. In the Egyptian desert, the mendicant hermit / sings sacred hymns; we celebrate a great saint, a great saint”.
I Sandandoniari, 16 January 2025
The ritual practice of the sung alms-giving in honour of Saint Anthony the Abbot draws on certain elements of his biography, as recorded by Saint Athanasius. Born in 251 in Koma, Egypt, and died in Quolzoum on 17 January 356, at the age of 105, Anthony led a hermit’s life in isolated places, subsisting on food offerings; his struggle against the noisy demons took place with the aid of song and prayer. He was also considered a powerful miracle-worker, capable of healing serious illnesses and freeing people from demonic possession.
The Antonian Order was officially founded in the West in 1297. Still, the work of the religious inspired by the Egyptian saint had been established for some time: his followers specialised in treating ergotism and aiding people experiencing poverty, whom foundations and hospitals took in. They lived on alms and the rearing of communal pigs – fed by the whole community – to maintain the buildings and provide treatments based on pig fat.
The sick and the pigs were heralded by bells, just as the beggars go about collecting alms with a bell attached to the top of a stick. Today’s alms-seeking procession also evokes the image of the group of hermits following the saint, or that of the Antonian monks going about collecting alms to gather goods for the poor and the sick. Song and music are the instruments that give power to the ritual. According to local beliefs, they purify places of negative influences, just as they were the tools used by Saint Anthony the Abbot to defeat the Devil.
Devotion to the saint, as practised within rural Catholicism, celebrates his specific attributes on 17 January, offering a twofold ritual protection: for domestic animals (particularly pigs) and against diseases (the plague, scurvy and, indeed, shingles). In the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga area, various ceremonial forms are attested, ranging from sung alms-giving to the staging of sacred plays, from the lighting of bonfires to the blessing of animals in churchyards.
In Fano Adriano, in the Upper Vomano Valley, according to a tradition that is still very much alive throughout the valley, the itinerant singing collection is carried out on the eve of the festival, when a large group of local musicians and singers – whose line-up varies and is partly improvised – moves from house to house in the village and the neighbouring districts to celebrate not only the saint but also family ties and neighbourly relations, friendships, bonds and social ties that form the fabric of the community. Welcoming the groups as they pass is an honour, and refreshments are always offered, along with a monetary donation and, if available, food to take away: sausages, pork loins, cheeses, and dry biscuits filled with grape jam, such as the traditional cellittë.
Carefully analysed by Annunziata Taraschi in her long-term ethnographic research on the groups collecting alms in honour of the saint in the Gran Sasso area, the alms-collecting tradition in Fano Adriano has never ceased, at least according to the accounts passed down by the elders. The song performed by the itinerant group is ‘Nel deserto dell’Egitto’ (‘In the Desert of Egypt’), a variant of which is also found in the hamlet of Cerqueto and in various mountain communities, with an original, recently introduced addition used as the opening. For some years now, it has been a ritualised custom for the group to gather at the cellar of one of its members, in Villa Moreni, before setting off on their rounds, first enjoying a snack of bread, cheese and local cured meats.
The Antonian Order was officially founded in the West in 1297. Still, the work of the religious inspired by the Egyptian saint had been established for some time: his followers specialised in treating ergotism and aiding people experiencing poverty, whom foundations and hospitals took in. They lived on alms and the rearing of communal pigs – fed by the whole community – to maintain the buildings and provide treatments based on pig fat.
The sick and the pigs were heralded by bells, just as the beggars go about collecting alms with a bell attached to the top of a stick. Today’s alms-seeking procession also evokes the image of the group of hermits following the saint, or that of the Antonian monks going about collecting alms to gather goods for the poor and the sick. Song and music are the instruments that give power to the ritual. According to local beliefs, they purify places of negative influences, just as they were the tools used by Saint Anthony the Abbot to defeat the Devil.
Devotion to the saint, as practised within rural Catholicism, celebrates his specific attributes on 17 January, offering a twofold ritual protection: for domestic animals (particularly pigs) and against diseases (the plague, scurvy and, indeed, shingles). In the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga area, various ceremonial forms are attested, ranging from sung alms-giving to the staging of sacred plays, from the lighting of bonfires to the blessing of animals in churchyards.
In Fano Adriano, in the Upper Vomano Valley, according to a tradition that is still very much alive throughout the valley, the itinerant singing collection is carried out on the eve of the festival, when a large group of local musicians and singers – whose line-up varies and is partly improvised – moves from house to house in the village and the neighbouring districts to celebrate not only the saint but also family ties and neighbourly relations, friendships, bonds and social ties that form the fabric of the community. Welcoming the groups as they pass is an honour, and refreshments are always offered, along with a monetary donation and, if available, food to take away: sausages, pork loins, cheeses, and dry biscuits filled with grape jam, such as the traditional cellittë.
Carefully analysed by Annunziata Taraschi in her long-term ethnographic research on the groups collecting alms in honour of the saint in the Gran Sasso area, the alms-collecting tradition in Fano Adriano has never ceased, at least according to the accounts passed down by the elders. The song performed by the itinerant group is ‘Nel deserto dell’Egitto’ (‘In the Desert of Egypt’), a variant of which is also found in the hamlet of Cerqueto and in various mountain communities, with an original, recently introduced addition used as the opening. For some years now, it has been a ritualised custom for the group to gather at the cellar of one of its members, in Villa Moreni, before setting off on their rounds, first enjoying a snack of bread, cheese and local cured meats.
The preparations
The Sandandoniari, voices, and ambient sounds.
Fano Adriano (TE), 16 January 2025.
Recording by Emanuele Di Paolo, Don Nicola Jobbi/Bambun Study Centre Archive.
Fano Adriano (TE), 16 January 2025.
Recording by Emanuele Di Paolo, Don Nicola Jobbi/Bambun Study Centre Archive.
Listen to the track
Watch the video
The singing begging
The Sandandoniari group prepares for their outing with refreshments at a local wine cellar, before setting off on their singing tour through the narrow streets and houses.
Fano Adriano (TE), 16 January 2015.
Filmed by Emanuele Di Paolo, Don Nicola Jobbi/Bambun Study Centre Archive.
Cultural transmission and protection
The group of musicians and singers from Fano Adriano comprises men of various ages, from the oldest to the youngest, and sometimes even children, who accompany the core members of the group, who take part every year, along the routes that vary from year to year through the village’s narrow streets and the nearby hamlet of Villa Moreni. In this sense, the Sandandoniari is a flexible group, to which members are added or removed depending on circumstances, whilst certain central figures – such as the performer of Saint Anthony the Abbot – remain essentially unchanged, always present at the annual event. The continuation of the tradition is therefore ensured by a large group of enthusiasts, generally numbering more than twenty, who take advantage of the occasion to come together during the winter, even when they reside, for professional reasons, far from Fano Adriano.
The ethnographic records compiled by Annunziata Taraschi in the early 2000s reveal a stable ceremonial structure and a group of beggars comprising largely the same members, thanks to whom the distinctive performance practices and repertoire remain alive and are passed down to subsequent generations.
The itinerant ritual, in the form known in Fano Adriano as well as in various other locations in the Vomano Valley, still retains significant social connotations today and is strictly for the internal use of the community that practises it, far removed from forms of commercialisation and spectacle that would distort its meaning by transforming it into a public performance, destined to be observed rather than intimately and intensely experienced.
The ethnographic records compiled by Annunziata Taraschi in the early 2000s reveal a stable ceremonial structure and a group of beggars comprising largely the same members, thanks to whom the distinctive performance practices and repertoire remain alive and are passed down to subsequent generations.
The itinerant ritual, in the form known in Fano Adriano as well as in various other locations in the Vomano Valley, still retains significant social connotations today and is strictly for the internal use of the community that practises it, far removed from forms of commercialisation and spectacle that would distort its meaning by transforming it into a public performance, destined to be observed rather than intimately and intensely experienced.
OTHER ASSETS IN THE SAME MUNICIPALITOTHER ASSETS IN THE SAME MUNICIPALITY
Crossed voices
Il canto a “vatocco” a Cerqueto