Cantamaggio

The "Cantamaggio" is a festival celebrating the return of spring and the waking up of nature from the winter sleep; The origins of the manifestation seems to legated to pagan and tribal rites linked to countryside practices that intended to celebrate the return of the good season and in a certain way to thank the divinities for favorable summer harvest.

The actual "Cantamaggio" of Terni, in fact, has its roots in an antique city habit: groups of "maggiaioli" also called "maggianti", which literal translation results to be "holders of May" (a flowering branch to which was suspended a luminous box) they were going from house to house singing "stornelli" and love songs; they were often receiving in exchange money or food and therefore they were planting the twig in land to wish good luck and fecundity. In 1896 the poet Furio Miselli brought back to life the antique tradition by rebuilding the "Maggiaioli", however, historic events such as political mutations and wars delayed the constitution of the "Cantamaggio" organism of Terni which has been created only a few years ago. Once again, this year, in the quarters of the city, nowadays also thanks to the initiative of some of the scholastic institutions, and in some small centers of the surroundings, some groups have been formed that decorate thematic carriages, aimed at making a parade in the streets of Terni in the evenings of April 30th and May 1st to compete for the premium of the last evening. During the days before the parade and the successive ones, the organizers, in collaboration with the cultural associations and the theatre groups, will make, as always, representations, exhibitions and spectacles of all kinds in addition to the traditional singing competition of dialectic songs.