We The Italians | Italian traditions: Montefiore dell’Aso. Corpus Christi's ancient floral display

Italian traditions: Montefiore dell’Aso. Corpus Christi's ancient floral display

Italian traditions: Montefiore dell’Aso. Corpus Christi's ancient floral display

  • WTI Magazine #152 Jun 25, 2022
  • 560

Montefiore dell'Aso, a typical medieval-style village of the Marche hinterland, is well preserved: notable stretches of walls equipped with gates and six towers dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries remain. A visit offers tourists pleasant views and valuable evidence of the historical and artistic past of the Italian Renaissance.

This beautiful village is also famous for the flower festival held every year on Corpus Christi day. This year it was celebrated on June 19th.

The relationship of the town of Montefiore with flowers takes us far back in time, to the cult dedicated to the goddess Flora, hence the name and the Latin verses of the Municipal Statute of 1569 that says, precisely: Flora locum tenuit, quin nunc de nomine florum dicitur (The Goddess Flora ruled the place which from that time took its name).

On the other hand, it is not difficult to enjoy a series of celebrations dedicated to flowers, given the spectacle that is offered to the eye when from the plains of the Menocchia stream one climbs up to Montefiore, along that route full of traces of ancient Picene (Sepulchral Caves) and Roman (Villas and Cisterns) presences entirely adorned with flowers of broom and a thousand other varieties.

The feast of Corpus Christi is relatively recent, it was instituted for the whole Christian community after the Eucharistic miracle of Bolsena (1263) by Pope Urban IV with in 1264 and fixed, in reference to the institution of the Eucharist, on Holy Thursday, on the Thursday following the first Sunday after Pentecost (60 days after Easter).

Over the years, slowly, the feast has spread throughout the country, gradually taking shape and blending, more or less harmoniously, its deeper religiosity with an evocative graphic setting.

The local tradition of the Infiorata (floral display) in Montefiore dell'Aso dates back to 1939, when a major religious event, the Eucharistic Congress, was organized from August 9 to 13. Corpus Christi was accompanied by a rich feast of flowers, and the display of the Body and Blood of Christ was professed in the streets of the town with the scents and colors of cut flowers.

In the Corpus Christi floral display tradition, designs are traced with chalk and women and boys fill them with wildflowers.

The subjects of the drawings are in theme with the feast: the chalice, the host, the monstrance, the lamb, the dove, the face of Christ, angels and saints. The silhouettes drawn are always filled with rose petals, broom flowers picked from our escarpments, leaves and flowers collected from the fields, and flour. The predominant colors are the yellow of the brooms and the white of the flour used for the Eucharist, lamb and dove.

From its origins, the Montefiore dell'Aso floral display has been distinguished by the length of the route and the search for alternative natural materials. It is made, in fact, with shredded leaves and flower petals, dried and ground flower petals, but also with colored natural essences: seeds, shavings, sawdust, etc.

Every year new essences are experimented with to achieve better results and to offer a unique spectacle.

Besides the beauty to Jesus is offered the joy of the many children, youth and adults gathered in Cultural Associations that export this worship to the world through events. All together, in the fragrant night, among the flowers cut in memory of Jesus' sacrifice, they transform the village into a great laboratory of colors, lights and joy