Return the 2000-year-old marble column and no one will get hurt!

Something has been in the local news lately and I love it because it sparked a good debate after lunch in the office. I was really getting into it. I’ve mentioned in the past how Brindisi historically is known as the town at the end of Via Appia, which is the greatest road in the Roman Empire (history according to me!). I have also told you that the end of the Via Appia was marked in Brindisi with two marble Roman columns, which are the symbol of the town. I also have mentioned that Lecce, for some odd reason, has one of the columns in Piazza Oronzo in Lecce with their patron Saint Oronzo on top of it.
(cue the music)
Now....
The rest of the story....
In Brindisi the popular story is that Lecce is a bunch of thieves and they stool the column back around 1660. Lecce believes that the column was a gift, which sounds like something a bunch of lying, cheating thieves would say. I’m not trying to influence you or something. Recently the mayor of Brindisi started asking the mayor of Lecce to please give us back our column and we’ll stop calling them lying, cheating, ugly, good-for-nothing thieves. I, for one, would love to see both columns back in Brindisi overlooking the sea like they are supposed to be. Why now? Well just recently Brindisi finished a restoration of the capital of the column we have. The capital is sooo precious that Brindisi is putting it in the “Salone di Colonna” (basically indoors to keep in preserved) instead of back on top of the column we have. They on the other hand are letting our column fall apart. Our column in Lecce has metal bands on it to hold it together under the weight of their fricken saint!
I should be fair. The big question should be, why would Brindisi give such a beloved piece of the town to Lecce? Well this is good story. It seems in 1528 one column fell over. No one is quite sure why but the common belief is that an earthquake caused it. I think someone from Lecce knocked it down, have you seen how they drive? Anyway, history is sketchy back then because Brindisi was hit with The Plague in 1526. Naturally putting the column back up was not a priority as people were dying in the streets. The column sat in pieces and not much is known until in 1660 when the column was erected in Lecce with a bronze of Saint Oronzo on it, like it is today. The theory is that sometime between 1528 and 1659 Brindisi gave the column to Lecce because Saint Oronzo liberated Brindisi from The Plague. That sounds like a reasonable reason to give the column away but Brindisi claims (and always has) that San Rocco liberated Brindisi from The Plague so there wouldn’t be any gifting of nothin’ between Brindisi and Lecce. There is even a record from November 2, 1659 in Naples of the mayor of Brindisi asking for the column to be returned but it was denied. So even before it was put up, Brindisi was asking for it back and now 348 years later and we are still asking. Sorry I went back to being a little one sided there again.
There is a response from the mayor of Lecce and I’ll just say it’s long and boring and definitely written by someone in politics. He even mentions at one point “Where would Lecce put its statue of Saint Oronzo?” Boy, do I have a response to that!!!!!

This jaded history is taken from the site below which is a Brindisi site so even my original story is from the Brindisi perspective….but you can’t trust those Leccese anyway… http://www.provincia.brindisi.it/provbr/storiatradizioni.nsf/3e86072a2032ae07c1256cf40039e714/51a1062d34b7b7a2c1256cf5003db251?OpenDocument

The Story of San Teodoro D'Amasea

The story of this saint is pretty cool to me. It’s lacks a lot of detail and if I’m getting something wrong then I hope Marco Ruuu will correct me. San Teodoro was a Roman soldier on a ship that sailed from Brindisi as part of the Crusades around 1210. He died in a battle in Aukat, Turkey. As the ship returned with his remains the sailors realized the Turks were chasing them and they would not escape. They decided to put his remains in small dingy and sent him adrift as they turned the ship to fight the Turks chasing them. The story says that the dingy miraculously made its way back to the harbor of Brindisi unaided.
So to mark this event, every year Brindisi has a boat parade led by a boat with the effigy of San Teodoro riding a white stallion (and a statue of San Lorenzo, the other patron saint of the town is on the boat too for some odd reason). The lead boat brings the statues into the harbor again as a reenactment of the original miraculous return in 1210. There are speeches made by important local politicians and religious folks. Then they set off the best fireworks show of the year from the Sailors Monument on the other side of the harbor. The waterfront and the steps up to the columns that mark the end of the Via Appia are PACKED with people.
The whole celebration is about 4 nights of what you see in the Youtube video link below. I guess I would be called crazy if I acted surprised to find video on Youtube. It's not great but it gives you a little of what the rides and vendors are like. My camera would make a video of about the same quality so I can’t make fun of the person that did this and if you can’t be here for the festival then it’s the next best thing.

Festival of San Teodoro

The carnival rides remind me of how I would like to take some of my Italian friends to the US. Back in Ohio I could take them to King’s Island just north of Cincinnati or Cedar Point up by Cleveland. Some of my best memories of childhood are when I was first allowed to ride “The Beast” at Kings Island and then later in my teens going there for most of the summer with a season pass. Nothing was cooler than riding in the very front of the Beast late at night.
It’s funny that I forgot about those days because people here always ask me what I did as a kid in the summer with no sea to go to. I remember now. The parents would drop us off at Kings Island and we would run wild all over the park. We hardly ever got into trouble except when we learned how to squeal the tires on the “old fashioned car ride” or when we learned that we could screw up the mechanical Smurfs by throwing pennies on their tracks until the Smurfs got stuck or…. Ahhh, the good ol’days….

Corpus Domini

I stayed home from the beach on Sunday so I could see the procession of Corpus Domini here in Brindisi. Here is a short description from the Brindisi website:
"This unique and religious ceremony takes place during the celebration of Corpus Domini, when the Bishop, riding an adorned white horse, parades the Blessed Sacrament (host) through the main streets of the City. This is in remembrance of an ancient tradition which originated in the year 1254."
For more information go to Brindisi web and check out the traditions. I was excited to see it because in years past I always missed it for some odd reason. Now I can finally say I've seen it. I was a little disappointed. They had some problems with the horse. First it wasn't white. Isn't that part of the tradition? And second, it DID NOT want to be apart of the parade so the bishop ended up walking most of the way. So there was no horse for most of the procession. I guess it's the blessing that matters and that has been done, so everything is ok. Also I can sleep better knowing that NOW I have seen every tradition that there is in Brindisi.


This is a photo when the bishop is getting ready to bless the sea and the city. Notice he's on foot now.


One of the many banners of the faithful that followed the bishop through the streets of Brindisi.