CARNEVALE DI PUTIGNANO

Putignano and its carnival

Tradition dates the origin of the Carnival of Putignano to 1394, making it one of the oldest carnivals in Europe. In that year, the Knights of Malta, who held the local government decided to transfer the St. Stephen Martyr relics from Monopoli Castle inland, as an attempt to put them away from the Saracens. Putignano was chosen as the destination for the transfer: the arrival of the relics of the farmers, at that time engaged in the graft of the screw (still today, one of the typical local agricultural activities), let the courts and face smeared with flour, recited in the vernacular jokes, verses and satire. According to historians were born at that time the offshoots, still the heart of the carnival tradition Putignano. It is only with the Fascist period that the peasant carnival will be transformed into a more refined bourgeois citizen carnival will then start the parade, dear communicative model of fascist culture, the floats. To make the basis for this transformation of tradition, craftsmanship mastery of the country that will transfer his carpentry skills in fun carnival fun. It is said that the first car was made using as a "soul" a network of a chicken coop. The Putignano Carnival is one of the longest duration. Start it on December 26 with the ceremony of exchange of the candle ceremony where people donate a candle to the church to ask forgiveness of the sins we commit during the 'Carnival, to continue the evening with offshoots. The Propaggini festival consists in the recitation of verses in rhyme in putignanese dialect that make fun of the mighty of the land, and shall deal with the warmest year spent arguments. The exposure is performed by groups of peasant clothes and work tools in memory of 'historical event. Then, from January 17, the day of St. Antonio Abate, begins a series on Thursday in which he joked about certain social strata: in order, on Thursday monsignors, priests, nuns, widows, bachelors, of married women and horned. The carnival ends on Shrove Tuesday, with an evening parade and the funeral of the carnival, it represented as a pig.