Four narrated tours taking in medieval frescoes, folk festivals and traditions linked to the cycle of the seasons, each exploring a theme related to a specific time of year: All Saints’ Day, St Martin’s Day, St Lucy’s Day and Christmas.
• 1 November, All Saints’ Day: Saints in Stone, Saints in Colour – a tour dedicated to the figures of the saints depicted on the church walls, a journey through Christian iconography, architecture and medieval art to interpret the symbols and images that reveal aspects of devotion and daily life in the Middle Ages
• 13 November, St Martin’s Day: The Cloak, the Earth and the Must – St Martin’s Day traditionally marked an important phase in the farming year, falling between the conclusion of agricultural contracts, the racking of the first wine and the arrival of the first cold spells. Proverbs, rituals and customs illustrate the link between spirituality, working the land and hospitality
• 13 December, Saint Lucy: Night and Light – a festival traditionally associated with the transition from darkness to light and the rituals that marked the anticipation of the end of winter. An opportunity to discover how medieval and rural communities coped with the cold season through their beliefs, customs and anticipation of the sun’s return
• 20 December, The Cradle in the Dark: The anticipation of the Nativity through art, the Gospels and popular devotion – with Christmas just a few days away, this tour explores the theme of the birth of Jesus through the works housed in the Precettoria. The focus is on the frescoes by Giacomo Jaquerio and Defendente Ferrari’s Nativity polyptych, linking the images to the accounts in the canonical and apocryphal Gospels and to the origins of the nativity scene tradition.
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