{"id":30,"date":"2019-08-18T15:07:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T15:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/?page_id=30"},"modified":"2020-01-03T16:01:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T16:01:24","slug":"villanova-del-battista","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/villanova-del-battista\/","title":{"rendered":"Villanova del Battista"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The \u201cpull\nof the giglio\u201d which is repeated every year on August 27th in a show of music\nand dance, represents the culminating moment of a journey that the Villanovese\ncommunity starts in early July, with the harvesting of wheat that is mowed by\nhand to leave the stem long enough to weave it, and the collection of wild oats\nfor the creation of the decorative elements that will cover the giglio<\/em>. This devotional machine\nrepresents a votive offering to Saint John the Baptist and consists of a\npyramidal obelisk up to 28 meters high, divided into 5 layers with a spire. The\ngiglio<\/em> is covered with panels of\nstraw and artistically intertwined oats. The celebrations officially open on\nthe Sunday before August 27th with the ritual “lift” that brings the\nartistic machine from a supine to a vertical position. After the\n“pull” of August 27th, the giglio<\/em>\nremains in Piazza Aldo Moro, in front of the Assunta church, to be admired by\neveryone until the first Tuesday of October, the day of San Rocco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nentire Villanovese community is involved in the assembly of the festive machine\nand actively participates in the ritual by gathering assiduously, starting in\nthe months preceding the feast, in the rooms and courtyard of the preschool.\nThe ears of wheat and oats that the farmers have harvested for this purpose\narrive here, the best stems are selected and are prepared for processing by\nbeing immersed in water. Only when the culm of the ears is particularly elastic\nis it possible to create the different decorative elements:\n“trucinielli” have 2 to 8 stems, “braids”,\n“mirrors”, and “strips of split straw” are rolled up or\ncover larger surfaces. The straw processing technique is handed down from\ngeneration to generation and today it is a prerogative of all the younger ones\nwho carry on the tradition of weaving, assisted by senior members of the\ncommunity through collective participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis not possible to establish a certain date for the origin of the giglio<\/em> of Villanova but popular\ntradition associates it with an ex votos made by Costantino Ciccone in honor of\nSan Giovanni Battista in the 1800s. Initially the ex votos consisted of an\nobelisk just two meters high, and later the structure became more complex and\nuntil 1930 two gigli<\/em> are documented:\none 25 meters high worked with the “gralito”, the most ductile wild\noats without knots in the stem, the other smaller one, made with the soft wheat\nstalk. When the disastrous earthquake of July 23rd 1930 completely destroyed\nthe village, the tradition was interrupted, but during this period the\nVillanova citizens went to the nearby community of Flumeri and every year, on\nAugust 15th, they contributed to the pull of the wheat giglio<\/em> of that community made in honor of San Rocco. Only in 1986,\non the initiative of the mayor Ottaviano Silano, the tradition of the giglio<\/em> of Villanova for San Giovanni\nBattista was resumed and has not been interrupted since.\n\nThe whole Villanovese community is deeply involved in\nthe creation of the giglio<\/em> and the\nrituals of the “lift” and “pull”. The participation of a\nlarge number of young people guarantees continuity for this tradition and both\nthe municipality and the schools encourage their involvement through the\npromotion of workshop activities. Between 2002 and 2005 the pupils of Villanova\nmiddle school, assisted by Prof. Angiolina Di Cecilia, created a real\n“manual” that illustrates all the operational building phases of the giglio<\/em> and straw processing techniques\nwith photographs, in great detail: The\nGiglio of Villanova del Battista. Manual and History<\/em>. Delta3 Editions,\nGrottaminarda, 2005.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cpull of the giglio\u201d which is repeated every year on August 27th in a show of music and dance,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":538,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1479,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30\/revisions\/1479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/festedelgrano.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}