'Il rogo della vecchia': the cheat day of Lent!

What comes to mind when you read the word 'carnival'? Brightly-coloured costumes, perhaps, or throngs of masked merrymakers parading down streets strewn with confetti. Many will be familiar with such festivities, which take place each year just before Lent, but few, outside northern Italy, will have heard of a second event held exactly halfway through this period of abstinence: 'il rogo della vecchia'.

What is 'il rogo della vecchia'?

'Il rogo della vecchia' which translates roughly as 'the burning of the old woman', is a festival held each year in Northern Italy in the middle of Quaresima (Lent). Also known as 'giovedì grasso' (fat Thursday), it is what one might describe as a 'cheat day': twenty-four hours during which Christians are free to indulge in whatever they have been denying themselves for the previous twenty days.

What does this have to do with old women? you may be wondering. Well, this event, which usually falls fairly close to 21st March, is also a celebration of the coming of spring. Old women are used as a metaphor for things in life that have essentially exceeded their sell-by date: bad habits, failing relationships, or any aspects of life, really, that one would be better off leaving to perish alongside winter. This is a time to let go of the past and concentrate on building a better tomorrow.

The festival has Celtic origins – Northern Italy, or Cisalpine Gaul, as it was then called, was occupied by this people during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC – but was later assumed by the Catholic Church and adapted for the Christian calendar. This explains why it is an intermingling of both religious and pagan principles.

How is the event celebrated?

Each year, communities across Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige and other regions of northern Italy come together to 'burn old women'. Hundreds of inhabitants from each village look on in awe as huge bonfires are lit, eerie music comparable to Gallic sacrificial chants is played, and one poor wretch is burnt to a crisp. Spoiler alert: no humans are harmed in the making of these pyres. The 'old woman' is, in fact, nothing more than an appropriately decorated cardboard box (see my picture below from the event I attended this week in the small town of Rovato). Much to my relief, I have yet to find any evidence to suggest that festivities have ever been more sinister than this, at least not in recent years.

Since this is also a time for breaking fasts to feast, food will often be prepared for this event. In Rovato, we were treated by the local Scouts and Guides to piadina con crudo e fontina (Italian flatbreads filled with cured ham and cow's milk cheese), a convenient combination of three guilty-pleasure food groups: carbs, protein and fat. This was followed – for anyone who could stomach more of this rather stodgy delicacy – by piadina con Nutella, which I'm sure needs no translation.

A great time was had by all, and hopefully those observing Lent enjoyed this temporary deviation from abstinence. Since Thursday, the sun has been blazing, the birds have been tweeting, and flowers have been springing up in all the gardens. Did we really burn away winter, along with our impurities from the past few months, or is this just another nasty reminder of the existence of global warming? Either way, spring is well and truly upon us, so here's to a physically and metaphorically brighter future!

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