Festa di San Vito

Saint watches over dancers, entertainers, and pet dogs 

A statue of San Vito, with dogs at
his feet, at Paternò in Sicily

Celebrations are held throughout Italy every year on this day to celebrate the feast day of San Vito (Saint Vitus) . Although it is not a national public holiday, June 15 is the day when many Italians remember San Vito, a  young Christian martyr from Sicily, who died during the persecutions carried out in the fourth century by successive Roman Emperors, including Diocletian.

Many Italian towns, particularly those in southern Italy, honour San Vito with processions through the streets, theatrical events and religious ceremonies.

Vito was thought to have been born towards the end of the third century in Mazzaro del Vallo in Sicily. Little is known about his life, but according to legend, he was the son of a senator. As he grew up, he resisted his father’s attempts, which included various forms of torture, to persuade him to renounce his faith. He fled with his tutor and his tutor’s wife, who was also Vito’s nanny, to Lucania, in what is now Basilicata.

When he was about 12 or 13, he was believed to have been taken to Rome to drive out a demon that had taken possession of the soul of one of the sons of the Emperor Diocletian. He successfully performed the exorcism, but was then tortured, along with his tutor and nanny, for staying faithful to Christianity.

According to the story, an angel brought the three of them back to Lucania by a miracle, but they all died from the wounds they had suffered. After Vito had been dead for three days, he appeared to a local woman, who later discovered the three dead bodies and buried them where they lay.

During the Middle Ages, San Vito was counted among the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints who are venerated by Catholics because they believe their intercession can help against various diseases. 

In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great referred to a monastery dedicated to San Vito in Sicily and later popes wrote about a shrine and a chapel dedicated to him. His relics were taken to Pavia, France, Germany, and Bohemia. The bones from his hand are kept as a sacred relic in St Vitus Cathedral in Prague. 

The Cathedral of Saint Vitus in Prague, where
bones from his hand are kept as a sacred relic

In Germanic and Latvian cultures, the feast of Saint Vitus was once celebrated with manic dancing before his statue. After this dancing became popular, the name Saint Vitus Dance was given to the neurological disorder, Sydenham’s Chorea, which is characterised by involuntary jerking movements.

This also led to San Vito being considered the patron saint of dancers and entertainers. He is also supposed to protect people against lightning strikes, animal attacks and oversleeping.

Vito is the patron saint of the towns of Ciminna and Vita in Sicily, Forio on the island of Ischia, the town of Sapri in Campania, the contrada of San Vito in Torella dei Lombardi in Avellino, and the town of Rapone, in Basilicata. 

On June 15, which Italian regard as the beginning of summer, towns with San Vito as their patron have his statue carried through the streets, accompanied by brass bands. 

Because legend claims that the Emperor Diocletian set rabid dogs on Vito, only for the dogs to be cured and calmed by him, some regions historically tie his feast day in with the blessing of animals.

San Vito Lo Capo in Sicily, which sits at the head
of a promentory 34km (20 miles) north of Trapani

Travel tip:

San Vito Lo Capo, a town in northwestern Sicily named after the Saint, hosts some of the most spectacular celebrations with locals performing a dramatic, torch-lit re-enactment of the Saint's arrival by sea, culminating in a midnight firework display. On the afternoon of June 15, locals participate in a traditional game on the water. Competitors try to walk across a 10-metre-long wooden beam that is suspended over the sea and heavily coated in slippery soap. The goal is to grab a flag at the far end. At dusk, a flotilla of local fishing boats sails out to sea and returns carrying actors portraying young Vito, and his tutor and nanny. The shore erupts with flaring rockets and the blare of boat sirens. A solemn night procession features a heavy statue of San Vito carried on the shoulders of the faithful. The statue is wrapped in a cloak covered in gold ex-votos, offerings that have been given by people in exchange for miracles. San Vito can be found about 34km north of the resort of Trapani.

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Positano, looking from the beach towards the
Church of Santa Maria Assunta

Travel tip:

Because San Vito is also the patron saint of dogs, on June 15 in Positano on the Amalfi coast,  the area near the Church of Santa Maria Assunta and the pier of the Spiaggia Grande is filled with local people bringing their pet dogs to receive a blessing from a priest. The town's main beach is taken over by market stalls selling traditional Italian sweets, street food, and toys. The celebration closes at midnight with a big fireworks display over the sea that illuminates the entire cliffside town. Positano is one of the most glamorous towns on the Amalfi coast and became fashionable with artists and writers after the Second World War. Positano’s villas, shops and hotels spill down the hillside to the beach, so that seen from further round the bay, the resort looks as though it is covered by a cascade of pink, cream and yellow houses.

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More reading:

Sant’Eustachio, the Christian convert martyred by Hadrian

Why Saint Bona of Pisa became the patron saint of flight attendants

Saint Camillus de Lellis, the reformed gambler who gave up his vice to care for the sick

Also on this day:

1479: The birth of Lisa del Giocondo, immortalised as Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

1801: The birth of philosopher and writer Carlo Cattaneo

1897: The birth of politician and journalist Carlo Scorza

1927: The birth of comic book creator Hugo Pratt

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Nicola Abbagnano - philosopher

Thinker who championed ‘positive existentialism’ 

Nicola Abbagnano rejected the
negative tenets of existentialism

The philosopher Nicola Abbagnano, best known for his advancement of what he defined as positive existentialism, was born on this day in 1901 in Salerno in Campania.

Abbagnano, who spent much of his adult life in Turin, Milan and the Ligurian resort town of Santa Margherita Ligure, developed a philosophy that emphasised human possibility and freedom, rejecting more traditional existentialist discussions that focussed on how the struggle to create purpose in an inherently meaningless world can engender feelings of anguish and despair.

Many years on from his death in 1990, Abbagnano’s legacy of intellectual optimism continues to inspire philosophers who seek a balanced, pragmatic approach to existential questions, while his emphasis on ethical responsibility resonates in contemporary debates on human behaviour.

Abbagnano was born into a middle-class professional family in Salerno, where his father was a practising lawyer. He obtained a degree in philosophy in Naples, where his thesis became the subject of his first book Le sorgenti irrazionali del pensiero - The Irrational Sources of Thought, published in 1923. 

He subsequently taught philosophy and history at the Liceo Umberto I, in Naples, and from 1917 to 1936 he was the professor of philosophy and pedagogy in the Istituto di Magistero Suor Orsola Benincasa. 

From 1936 to 1976 he was based at the University of Turin, where he was appointed a full professor, first of the history of philosophy at the Faculty of Education, and from 1939 at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy.

The inner courtyard of the Palazzo dell'Università
in Turin, where Abbagnano was based for 40 years

As a scholar of philosophy, Abbagnano introduced into the national discourse his knowledge of the French and German existentialist trends, of which Heidegger, Jaspers and Sartre were leading exponents.

His 1939 work, La struttura dell'esistenza - The Structure of Existence - is seen as a manifesto of the evolution of his thought, in which he proposed an alternative to the German existentialism of Heidegger and Jaspers.

He defined his philosophical vision as positive existentialism. In his work Possibilità e libertà - Possibility and Freedom - published in 1956, he clarified the meaning of his philosophy as neither pessimistic nor optimistic. He did not subscribe to the vision of man as being so hindered by uncertainty as to be prevented from achieving full potential, but accepted that fulfilment could never be certain. 

Abbagnano wrote extensively. In 1950, he was co-founder of the periodical Quaderni di sociologia - Sociology Notebooks - and in 1952 he was joint editor with the political philosopher Norberto Bobbio of the Rivista di filosofia - Philosophy Magazine. 

In 1964, he began writing for the Turin newspaper La Stampa, moving to Indro Montanelli’s Milan daily, Il Giornale, in 1972. 

Abbagnano's legacy of intellectual
optimism still inspires philosophers

Earlier, in the 1950s, he had organised a series of conventions under the banner of "New Enlightenment," bringing together academics who were interested in the main trends of the foreign philosophical thought. 

Many of his books, especially later in his career, became bestsellers, including his 1987 work La saggezza della filosofia - The Wisdom of Philosophy - and Dizionario di filosofia - Dictionary of Philosophy, published the same year.

His salary as a professor and his income from his writing enabled him to spend an increasing amount of time away from the oppressive heat of the cities on the coast of Liguria in Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure, where he acquired a home in 1959.

He delighted in the sunsets witnessed from Portofino, which for a few minutes, depending on weather conditions, bathed the village in a subtle, blue light. He also enjoyed swimming in the sea and chatting to fishermen on his walks along the waterfront.

It was in Santa Margherita Ligure, on the beach in front of the Hotel Continental, that he met Gigliola, with whom he spent the final 18 years of his life after they married in 1972. 

Abbagnano died in 1990 in Milan, aged 89. According to his wishes, he was buried in the cemetery of Santa Margherita Ligure.

The historic part of Salerno is made
up of quaint, narrow streets

Travel tip:

Salerno, situated some 55km (34 miles) south of Naples with a population of about 133,000, is a city with a reputation as an industrial port and is often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento. Yet it has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist. It is also a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are also cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts. The city has a Greek and Roman heritage and was an important Lombard principality in the middle ages, when the first medical school in the world was founded there. King Victor Emmanuel III moved there in 1943, making it a provisional seat of Government for six months and it was the scene of Allied landings during the invasion of Italy in World War II.  

The 16th century Castello di Santa
Margherita sits at the sea's edge
 

Travel tip:

Santa Margherita Ligure is a seaside town nestled between Rapallo and Portofino on the Riviera di Levante, noted for its pastel-coloured buildings, palm-lined promenades and lively marina.  Once a Roman settlement called Pescino, it has been a resort town since World War Two, with pebbly but picturesque beaches. Important buildings include the Basilica di Santa Margherita d'Antiochia, a beautiful baroque church, the 17th century Villa Durazzo, and the Castello di Santa Margherita, built in the 16th-century to defend against pirates.  The former fishing village of Portofino, which has become a resort famous for its picturesque harbour and historical association with celebrity visitors, is about 5km (three miles) from Santa Margherita Ligure along a road that hugs the coastline. It began to develop as a tourist destination in the late 19th century, when British and other Northern European aristocratic tourists were enticed by its charms, despite access then being mainly by boat, or horse and cart. 

Also on this day:

1979: The birth of writer and poet Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello

1823: Fire damages Rome Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls

1850: The birth of missionary and saint Frances Xavier Cabrini

1933: The birth of cartoonist Guido Crepax

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