The witches’ night of St John

Lazio · Central Apennines and the Adriatic
Rome, piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano and the taverns around it; the night between 23 and 24 June

The witches’ night of St John — the eve of 24 June in Rome, when the witches fly over the Lateran and the city keeps vigil in the square eating snails, with garlic and a sprig of broom about one’s person.

Variants and dialect names

la notte de San Giuvanni; witches, sorcerers and fattucchieri

What is told

On the eve of St John the witches of Rome go out and fly over the Lateran, and the city goes to spend the night in the square: «on the eve of St John it is the custom to go at night, as you know, to San Giovanni Laterano to pray to the Saint and to eat snails in the taverns». For protection, a sprig of broom pinned to the jacket and a head of garlic under one’s clothes; outside the house door the broom and the jar of salt, because the witch is forced to count bristles and grains until dawn. At dawn the cannon of Castel Sant’Angelo and the pope arriving in a gala carriage for mass. Belli, in 1834: «Tomorrow is St John’s? Well then, my boy, / tonight here whoever plies the trade / of witches, sorcerers and fattucchiere…».

What it was forthe author’s reading

The city festival turns fear into a collective vigil: on the same night the witches fly, the square is full, lit and drunk, and the countermeasures — garlic, broom, salt — are minimal gestures anyone can perform. It is the Roman form, urban and convivial, of the European St John’s night; the reference to the walnut tree of Benevento, in the main source, concerns the other nights of the week, not this one.

Where it is attested

Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, sonnet San Giuvan-de-ggiuggno, 15 March 1834 (no. 1095 in Tutti i sonetti romaneschi). Giggi Zanazzo, Usi, costumi e pregiudizi del popolo di Roma, Turin, Società tipografico-editrice nazionale, 1908, the chapter on the eve of St John and §§ 21 and 32 on witches, where he refers to his own sestinas Streghe, stregoni e fattucchieri, ossia la notte de S. Giuvanni. Documented modern revival: «Le streghe di San Giovanni», Municipio IX of Rome, 23-28 June 2009.

Caution

Three details read everywhere are not in Zanazzo. The reading «eating snails is burying quarrels, because the horns are the disputes» is a paraphrase by bloggers, never quoted as his text. The cowbells, the trumpets and the whistling to keep witches away appear only in popular accounts. And the Roman witches who that night «go to the sabbath under the walnut tree of Benevento»: Zanazzo names the walnut as the place of the gatherings «on the eve of Wednesday and of Saturday», not of St John’s night. Gregorovius’s description of a «joyous bacchanal» between San Giovanni and Santa Croce is cited by many but the passage could not be found. The date of the custom’s end — after 1870, or with the Great War — has no primary confirmation.

The grade says how well the entry is documented, not how interesting it is. How the grades are assigned.