PhD Program in Historical studies
The Feasts of Moors and Cristians in the province of Chieti: Tollo and Villamagna
The memory of a traumatic episode which took place on the coast of Abruzzo in the Summer of 1566, when Ottoman soldiers ravaged the coastal towns of Francavilla, Ortona and VastoLocated on the Adriatic coast, on the border between the regions of Abruzzo and Molise, Vasto has an important past, mainly related to the feudal families who governed it. After the Caldora, who were the feudal lords during the Angevin period, it was dominated by the D’Avalos, who arrived in the kingdom of Naples in the late fifteenth century and who united their own name throughout the Early Modern period to the Marquisate of Vasto., and that of a sensational victory of the fleet of the Holy League over the ships of the Sublime Porte on 7 October 1571 in LepantoWas a naval battle that took place on 7 October, 1571 and that pitted the Holy League (Spanish Monarchy, the Duchy of Savoy, the Papacy and the Republics of Venice and Genoa) against the Ottoman Empire. The victory put a stop to Ottoman expansion in the Christian West., constitute the historical background of two major festivals that are celebrated today in the province of Chieti: the Feast of the Madonna del Rosario “Our Lady of the Rosary” in Tollo (also known as the Madonna della Vittoria o dei Turchi “Our Lady of Victory or the Turks”) and the Feast of Saint Margaret in Villamagna (also known as the Battle of the Saracens). Some scholars even suggest that originally the grand celebration of the Banderesi in Bucchianico (Chieti) – which evokes the strength of the city against the troops of the capital – and the impressive ceremony of Farchie in Fara Filiorum Petri (Chieti) – in which a miraculous defeat of the French army in 1799 is celebrated – recall events which took place in the second half of the sixteenth century. Legend has it that at that time the Turks, after having plundered the coasts south of the fortress of PescaraAn important port and trading center on the Adriatic, Pescara was a key coastal fortress of the kingdom of Naples in the Early Modern period, repeatedly subject to attacks by pirates and Turks. It was a fief, since the Aragonese period, of the d’Avalos family, linked by kinship with the previous feudal lords, the d’Aquino., landed at the mouth of the river Foro and from there went to Tollo and Villamagna to loot. Waiting for them, however, was the brave resistance of the Christian militias which, thanks to the providential intervention of the Madonna del Rosario and Saint Margaret, resisted them and led them to conversion.
The feast of the Madonna del Rosario is held every year in Tollo on the first Sunday of August. Around noon, in Piazza Umberto I, an impressive wooden tower is already prepared after which a grueling battle between the Christian defenders holed up in the bastion (dressed in white costumes with red crosses on their chests) and Turkish invaders (wearing red costumes with golden crescents on them) will be staged. The clash, after a series of assaults, is won by the besieged, thanks to the miraculous intercession of the Madonna del Rosario. Since the late nineteenth century among the weapons at the disposal of the contestants, in addition to swords and scimitars, there are also of pots full of water and spaghetti (to which, in more recent times, watermelons have also added).
A similar clash took place at the beginning of the last century in Villamagna, on the last Sunday of August, the Feast of Saint Dominic. Here, unlike Tollo, however, the attackers (this time identified with the Saracens) proceeded to attack the tower with a scenic “machine” in the shape of a ship. Even nowadays, the deeds of Saint Margaret are commemorated in Villamagna on 13 July (with people in costume and on horseback). In the sixteenth century the saint allegedly saved the town, barring the way to the invading Saracens with a beam of fire.