“At Ferragosto you do not need excuses for a good beer and laughs in company, Ferragosto is already a good excuse to forget everything for a while and dedicate yourself to living.”
Stephen Littleword
August takes its name from the first roman emperor: Ottaviano Augusto, whom established the Feriae Augusti, rest of Augusto, on 18 B.C., initially on the 1st day of the month. From here the name Ferragosto.
This period exactly fell after the Consalia, celebrations for the end of the farm work dedicated to Conso, roman god of the ground and the fertility. In order to recover from the strain on the land. Hired hands used to go to visit their “lords” to exchange best wishes having a tip from them. Here is the pagan principle of these celebrations that were later assimilated to the Church with the Assumption of Mary moving the day to the 15th of August.
Following the catholic religion, having terminated the earthly life, the soul and the body of Mary were transferred in Paradise. But this doesn’t mean the death. For the Catholic Church Mary is the only one, after Christ, to be materially raised to Heaven waiting for the Universal Judgment. Orthodoxies and Armenians celebrate the one which they call the Dormition of the Theotokos. As regards the protestants, instead, as it is not told in the Evangel, this fact doesn’t exist.
But the most beautiful and waited part of this day, nowadays, is the trip outside, sea, lake or mountains, grills and huge “feasts”. This kind of celebrations has been introduced during the fascist period: from the second half of the 20s, the Fascism used to organize the “Popular trains of Ferragosto”. On the 13th, 14th and 15th of August dirt-cheap prices allowed Italians to tour the country. The options were two: “Trip of one day” or “Trip of three days” on a range of 200 kilometres.
The break from the work gave the possibility to families to visit places they could not otherwise effort. Lunches and pic-nic will be followed by the famous grill, which is only the most known of the traditions, but not the most traditional. “For Ferragost we eat roosted pigeons”, as it tells a popular quote certainly of Tuscany origin. The roosted pigeon is now eaten all over Italy, maybe with different names, as in Piacenza where we have the “roosted bomb”: a rice bomb served with pigeon meat, sausage and porcini mushrooms. In Roma we stay classical with the chicken casserole and peppers. And for the dessert we cannot miss the Margheritine of Stresa: the biscuits that the queen Margherita used to give to the guest of the Royal House at Ferragosto.
And at the AbanoRitz? We propose you a lunch at the Easy Barbecue: various buffet, with meat or fish grilles on demand in our garden-park of 6000 sqm, all followed by a nice relaxing afternoon in our swimming pools and then gala dinner, candlelight, with pianist and a special menu. To well end the evening, the sangria toast watching a light and colours show on the swimming-pool terrace. We wait for you!
