The festivals of the countryside
A separate section was the one devoted to the festivals of the countryside, with particular emphasis on the description of May Day. Castellan (1804), protagonist of a rural sketch, found himself dragged into the dance around the tree decorated for the festival and listening to legends about Charlemagne and the gifts that he bestowed on Calendimaggio (May Day), as well as the ones dispensed by his brothers and sisters Ferragosto (the feast of the Assumption), the Befana (Epiphany) and Mezza Quaresima (Mid-Lent). Among the others who described the festivities was de Brosses: “Five or six girls aged fourteen or fifteen, very finely dressed and the prettiest in the village, come together and go singing from house to house to wish everyone a merry May. And their songs are composed of a great chorus of voices of which the greater part are the most pleasant in the world. They express the hope that you will delight in the pleasures of youth as well as those of the season. That you will always have the same love in the evening and the morning. That you will live to the age of a hundred and two. That everything you eat will be turned into sugar and oil. That you will have no need of habits or lace, that Nature will always be bountiful and that the excellence of her fruit will surpass the beauty of her flowers.”