BEFANATA
Itinerant ritual quest
5th January 2024
Rufina, Montebonello and Colognole (Florence, IT)
Organised by La Leggera APS, as part of the Creative Europe Tramontana IV project
For 26 years, the group of people who would later found the association ‘La leggera’, at the express invitation and encouragement of the elderly people interviewed, have been reviving the tradition of itinerant ritual begging known as ‘Befanata’. On the evening and night of January 5th each year, a team of masked ‘befanotti’ made up of the poet (the only one not masked), Pulcinella/devil, the old man and the old woman with her daughter, a young man engaged to be married with the daughter of the two old men, the doctor, the parish priest and the musicians, visit the houses in the community. In each house there is a short scene in which the old men despair of being able to marry their daughter, until one of them falls to the ground because of a sudden illness and, arousing the pity of those present, obtains the gifts needed to make the longed-for marriage a reality. The ceremony ends with ritual singing and dancing. The tradition is linked to the passing of the year, and ushers in Carnival and the domestic dance season.
