Doubts about the Feasts of Tollo and Villamagna

The only descriptions of the Feasts of Tollo and Villamagna at our disposal date from the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. They were drawn from the most famous folklorists of Abruzzo (Gennaro Finamore, Antonio De Nino, Tommaso Bruni) and some foreign travelers. As a result, we are not able to ascertain whether such feasts had been celebrated centuries earlier. Similarly, we do not have the tools to check whether the local facts alluded to in the celebrations of Tollo and Villamagna ever really happened. We do not know, in other words, if these towns were really attacked by the Ottomans. It is likely, therefore, that some scholar, perhaps from the nineteenth century, thought to adapt the Battle of Lepanto to the size of the town, relying on the memory of the previous Turkish invasion of Abruzzo (1566), without taking into account the veracity of the alleged facts and the historical profile of the protagonists.