Santa Vittoria Spongano

After two years of interruption, the patronal feast in honor of Santa Vittoria is, every year, the most important religious and civil appointment for the community of Spongano.

Victoria was a noble Roman, was born around 230 AD. When he reached the appropriate age for marriage, was asked to marry the noble Eugenio. The woman, however, refused the proposal also deciding to sell her jewelry and her precious garments. The proceeds thought it well to distribute it to the poor and needy. Following the refusal, Victoria was segregated.

The exile of the Holy lasted for three years, until 253, after which Eugene denounced the pope of the Campidoglio. The latter decided to send a Trebula (place of exile) the Commissioner Taliarco, with the intent of forcing the woman to worship the goddess Diana. Victoria, who had been baptized at an early age, he opposed with so much firmness that was killed pierced by a sword.

He was martyred on December 18, 253 and buried five days later. The relic of the Holy was brought in the town of Spongano in 600 and from that moment Victoria was proclaimed Patron Saint.

She even two times of the year are dedicated to the festivities:

The first December 23, known as the festival of Panare, with the representation of the life story of Victoria followed by the ritual of burning of panare (the leaves of the palm tree);

The second during the summer, on the 8th of August, mainly as a holiday attraction for tourists, as in the best traditions of Salento.

Both holidays were established by the will of the Baroni Bacile of Castiglione that, in 1600, and obtained by Brands transmitted, the Archdiocese of Otranto, this double feast. Here then that the flames winter (according to tradition the "panare" in fact are made slowly burn as little tongues of fire that symbolically recall those of the nostrils of the dragon, tamed by the Holy, burning crops, homes and people, you will pass heat "softer" of the illuminations summer. The second period of festive celebrations, recalls a serious matter for the population. many years before, a 7 August (but no one knows precisely what year), a violent storm fell on all the province threatening the fields and the crops of the farmers. violence of the hurricane seemed to have no end and peasants, desperate, went to the church to pray to Santa Vittoria to intercede for them. When they went in their fields, to take sad awareness of the extent of the damage, to their amazement they discovered that the crops were saved from the storm, remaining intact, unlike those of neighboring countries, however, paid serious consequences.

Thanks for this miracle is renewed every year, so deeply felt, and 7 to 9 August Spongano turns into a stage cheering.