Putignano Carnival is one of the most famous cultural traditions of Puglia, in effect it’s the longest carnival in Italy and one of the oldest of Europe.
It has origin in the Middle Ages, at the end of the 14th century, when on the 26th December 1394 the relics of Saint Stephen, guarded by the Knights of Malta in the Monopoli Abbey, were moved inland to Putignano, in the Church of Santa Maria la Greca, considered a safer and preserved place than the castle on the sea, which was about to be attacked by the Saracens.
The legend says that during the transfer of Saint Stephen’s relics, the farmers working the land, left the fields at the passage of the procession to follow the saint and celebrate him singing and dancing.
So, this was the origin of the Propaggini Festival: the Propaggini was the grafting technique traditionally made at that time of the year, and it marks the beginning of the Carnival of Putignano since more than 600 years.
Every year on the 26th December, in connection with the Patronal Festival of Saint Stephen, the Putignano Carnival gets underway with rituals, traditions and cultural events until Mardi Gras, the last day of the Carnival.
The Lent season begins the day after and this is time of fasting and abstinence, which will end at Easter.
The word Carnival comes from the latin “carnem levare”, that is to say „remove meat“, and it’s referred to the Quaresima period, during which usually no meat is eaten.
The event has evolved over the time and in the early 1900s appeared the first chariots decorated with straw dummies, then replaced in the ’50s with allegorical carts in papier-machè, expertly handmade realized from the paper-machè masters nowadays.
The Carnival festival in Putignano has a party day every Thursday starting on 17th January, dedicated to different social classes: event started with monsignors, proceeds with the priests, then with the nuns, widows, mad people, married women and it ends with the cuckholds, well the married men.
The Carnival’s mascot in Putignano is Farinella, which takes the name from the typical wheat produced in town, obtained from chick peas and barley toasted and stone milled.
viaggieitinerari... in Puglia by Valeria Dicarlo 