Buon San Valentino

Especially to those in love, the Italian Saint Valentine is a person of note.  He is the patron saint of beekeepers too, perhaps related to the sweetness of honey and of sweet gifts as tokens of love.

Valentine may have been a priest in Rome, a bishop of what is today the city of Terni (one hour northeast of Rome) or a martyr in the Roman provinces of Africa.  It is said that he had a charismatic ability to bring lovers together, and to suppress rancor among quarrelling couples.  On February 14, 273, the emperor Claudius — threatened by Valentine’s Christian evangelizing — had him decapitated and martyred: he was was buried just north of Rome, on the Via Flaminia. The emperor had been irritated : he had decreed that bachelors were more dedicated solders than were family men and thus marriage was to be prohibited for all young single males,  but Valentine had nevertheless continued to perform secret marriages for young lovers.  When this act was discovered,  Claudius ordered him put to death. Another legend tells that Valentine was martyred for assisting Christians to escape severe Roman prisons where they were beaten and tortured. In 496 Pope Gelasius established what is now Saint Valentine’s Day.

Our children’s enthusiasm for the characterful Valentine led us on a little pilgrimage yesterday out Saint Valentine’s very Via Flaminia, where the saint’s actual burial spot is unknown but may be just outside the gate. So we started at that ancient road’s beginning, at the gate where the road entered the city, and at the most theatrical of Roman squares, Piazza del Popolo (where merry preparations were well underway for the heavily attended Women’s Protest Against Berlusconi, staged there and in cities across Italy and Europe in the afternoon.) Our first destination, at Via Flaminia 80, was Explora, a newly-reorganized, creative, and discernibly Italian hands-on Children’s Museum which we include in many families’ Travel Plans. We all munched on homemade honey sandwiches (the children’s insistence, in honor of the day). And from here we continued on out the Via Flaminia to one of our favorite of all picnic spots, never crowded, a sort of secret treasure, Carsulae, a hilltop ancient Roman town with a bucolic siting and all the architectural features you want from a Roman city : an original road (the actual Via Flamina, with chariot tracks), superb arches, a theater and amphitheater, walls, a Forum, baths — and wildflowers and busy buzzing bees. Our camera was left at home, alas, so we cannot document the scene for you — but Carsulae is one of the lesser visited archaeological sites (like Vulci, Ostia Antica and other favorites we will tell you about) that we will direct you to if you are staying in or near Umbria.

The day ended with a traditional San Valentino cake from our beloved Dolci Desideri, with the children’s homemade cookies circling around it.

Buon San Valentino !