TRADITIONS OF MANTOVA
Festival of the "Borielli"
Goito
Epifania
The festival is celebrated with a great bonfire; on its top a puppet, "the Old one", personification of the
Epifania, but also of the evil, is burnt. The bonfire is prepared very meticulously: in the lowest part coppers are arranged, then bushes, and finally straw, in which chestnuts of India are scattered and, caught up from the fire, explode noisily.
Festival of the turkey
Goito
Wednesday of Ashes
The festival is a contest in which the contenders, by bicycles, try to detach with a stick the head of a turkey hung in the middle of the public square. Today the animal is already dead, but in the past it was exposed alive.
Display of the Sacred Vases
Saint Friday The Sacred Vases contain some coagulated drops of blood, maybe belonged to Jesus Christ, mixed to loam. The golden vases are placed in an altar in the crypt of the basilica of
S. Andrea. The Saint friday there is the display of the Sacred vases, on the greatest altar of the basilica. In the evening the relic is brought in procession along the ways of the historical center of the city, brought by the bishop of
Mantova and by an other auxiliary bishop.
