La festa di S. Martino

[owlfish]

Today is Saint Martin's Day, a day of a soldier's sacrifice, although a rather different one than those commemorated by Armistice Day. Martin was a Roman soldier from Hungary, who, pitying a roadside beggar near Amiens, cut his cloak into two pieces with his sword and gave the beggar one of them. Later, he realized in a vision that he had given his (half) cloak to Christ, and converted to Christianity.

Traditionally, in many parts of Europe, this is the beginning of winter. It's a feast day in preparation of a pre-Christmas fasting period, a day for celebrating the harvest, eating goose, and drinking wine.

The Venetian tradition is to buy and eat cookies in the shape of Saint Martin - San Martino. This is one. My parents brought it to me this past week as a seasonal gift. Can you make out the Roman soldier with helmet on horseback underneath all that frosting and candy?

Comments

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I forgot it was also Martinmas -- a sad thing for a member of the Societas Sancti Martini to admit.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

One of my favourite saints.

[cthulie.livejournal.com]

Erm. My first thought was, "Homer Simpson on a horse?"

[cdave]

IIRC you mentioned a meme filter a while ago. theengineer just reminded me. Could I request to be added?

[non-trivial.livejournal.com]

St Martin! I haven't celebrated this since I was a kid - we would go around with lanterns and sing songs. I'd completely forgotten about this - and I never realised it was also Armistice Day.