On November 11th we celebrate San Martino, an anniversary still very much felt in our country, whose origins are very ancient. As per tradition, many families and friends will gather on this day to spend a few hours together eating typical autumn products. Chestnuts and wine are a must on the table, a combination also celebrated in a popular saying, which is still very widespread.
Saint Martin, bishop of Tours, is among the most venerated saints of the Middle Ages, particularly in France. His figure is remembered for his great generosity for having helped a poor person on a rainy and cold day. According to legend, Martin – who was a Roman soldier at the time – seeing the beggar decided to cut him in half with his sword to prevent the man from freezing to death. At that moment the rain stopped falling and the clouds parted and the day became almost summer-like. Hence the famous expression “St. Martin’s Summer” (which in recent years has become reality, given the record heat waves).
This anniversary has inspired several painters and composers. But the poem that perhaps celebrates most of all describes in a very vivid way the atmosphere, flavors and scents of this time of year is that of Giosuè Carducci. A particularly sonorous composition, dedicated to one of the autumn symbols par excellence: wine, which boils in the barrels, cheering up the spirits.
The words of the great poet still resonate in minds and hearts today, when he describes this festival as a moment of pure joy, in which “every must is wine” and evoke images of golden fields, ripe bunches of grapes and cellars that open for the tasting of new wine, a true ritual that celebrates the end of the harvest and the beginning of a new cycle of nature.
The text of the poem San Martino
Here is the text of the timeless poem by the Tuscan poet:
The fog on the steep hills
drizzling salt,
and under the mistral
the sea screams and whitens;
but through the streets of the village
from the boiling of the vats
goes the sour smell of the wines
the soul to cheer up.
It turns on burning logs
the spit crackling:
the hunter is whistling
on the doorstep to admire
among the reddish clouds
flocks of black birds,
how exiled thoughts,
migrate at vespers.
