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The Palio Marinaro

The Palio Marinaro in honour of Santa Fermina‘is rooted in the history and traditions of Civitavecchia: it is a sporting event of rowing competitions on rowing boats between historic districts of all junior, senior, male and female categories and today of healthy competition between the three ports of Civitavecchia, Fiumicino and Gaeta. It is a symbolic moment of historical re-enactment of the night of the year 813 ‘when at the first light of dawn the fishermen of Centumcellae (ancient Civitavecchia) intent on their night work spotted among the mists of the horizon the advance of a menacing fleet, marked by the green banners of the Saracens. From rowing to rowing and voice to voice, the fishermen managed to alert the town of the threatening arrival of the Saracen invaders and so it was that the inhabitants found shelter and escape from the imminent and certain extermination in the wooded mountains of Tolfa where they founded the town of Cencelle (Leopoli). The port was occupied and the city destroyed.’
The dates of the celebrations of St Fermina, the patron saint, on 28 April with the procession at sea, and 15 August, when the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is celebrated, and the city’s Christmas, encapsulate most of the maritime traditions and devotions of modern Civitavecchia, which coincide with the dates when navigation in the Mediterranean was possible for small boats and when maritime activities were concentrated between May and September. The purpose of the feast at the end of April was to invoke the intercession of the patron saint to safeguard against the risks faced at sea in the spring and summer season.
In 1996, Don Costantino Bocci, chaplain of the Port, together with the fishermen, had the merit of reviving the ancient tradition of the Palio Marinaro from the oblivion into which it had fallen since the mid-1970s. In the old Palio Marinaro there were 12 historical districts, which later became 8 ‘New Historical Districts’: Rione Aurelia, Rione Pantano, Rione Centro Storico, Rione Pirgo, Rione Cisterna Faro, Rione Capo dell’Oro, Rione San Gordiano, Rione San Liborio.

Read more:The Palio Marinaro of Civitavecchia

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