His life - His charisma - His legacy - The tradition
St. Martin’s Fair in Alzano - Iconography

The tradition

St. Martin of Tours is remembered in the liturgical calendar on November 11^th. In the Bergamask tradition, such date coincided with the closing of the agrarian year. In fact, “to make a St. Martin” meant – and locally still means today – “to move”, because the peasants would leave the fields they had rented and cropped as tenant farmers after the last harvest – the one of corn, and grape.

On St. Martin’s day it was customary to siphon wine off the vat to pour it into the barrel, and the newly fermented wine was first tasted. In this respect, the homonymous poem by G. Carducci comes to mind: "La nebbia agli irti colli piovigginando sale ...".