Another mid-summer feast, celebrated on 16 August, and it has a special history:
This red baldachin called TENDON DEL DOGE has been waiting for the past couple of days for today’s FESTA DI SAN ROCCO: So yes, summer feasts in #Venice continue throughout August and well into September, and La Festa di San Rocco comes immediately after celebrating Ferragosto (whose story we’ve described in the previous post).
The origins of La Festa di San Rocco go back to the year 1576, when Venice was suffering from the second serious bout of bubonic plague (May 1575 – July 1577), causing the death of approx. 50,000 residents.
Foto di Simone Venturini (Comune di Venezia)
On 16 August 1576, the Doge and Signoria (government) made their first pilgrimage to the Church of San Rocco, arriving there after a solemn procession along the Grand Canal, walking from San Tomà towards Campo dei Frari and from there, to the Church which is just around the corner.
Since then, the Doge‘s pilgramage was repeated every year on 16 August until 1796, and afterwards, continued by the Patriarch of Venice, until our times.
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