Tag Archives: culture

Gifts from Santa Lucia

Present-giving around the turn of the year involves traditions which vary from country to country. In different parts of the world, gifts are brought by Father Christmas, Saint Nicolas (more about this here) or the Three Wise Men (the Spanish ‘Reyes’ or Kings).

In Bergamo and some other parts of Northern Italy, Santa Lucia, a 4th-century martyr from Syracuse in Sicily, is the one who distributes treats to children. With a name based on the Latin root for light (Lux), Santa Lucia is celebrated close to the shortest days of the year with candles (like in parts of Scandinavia) and gifts which bring good cheer in times of darkness. An (incorrect) Italian saying holds that ‘Il giorno di Santa Lucia è il più corto che ci sia’, Santa Lucia’s day is the shortest one there is—the longest night actually falls on the winter solstice. Santa Lucia (or St Lucy) is the patron saint of the blind and of opticians, and she is often represented holding a plate or a staff on which sit a pair of eyes as an allusion to an episode in her life. The Italians value the figurative meaning of light and view Santa Lucia as a figure representing a form of wisdom and clear-sightedness.

The reason for Santa Lucia’s importance in Bergamo is to be found in the presence of her relics in Venice—the large church of Santa Lucia, not far from the train station which bears her name, was built to house them. Bergamo, which is in Lombardy, was (until the end of the eighteenth century) a part of the territories of the republic of Venice and the lion of St Mark is visible on town gates, fountains and other constructions throughout the town.

Whilst Santa Claus has his reindeer, Santa Lucia is said to be accompanied by a donkey, her asino or asinello. He is sometimes described as alato or winged to help him fly from house to house on his mission to deliver presents—at the top of the page you can see a picture of the saint and the donkey on the blackboard showing a festive poem which was in the window of a confectioner’s in Bergamo. Since the early 20th century, children in the city have taken to writing letters to Santa Lucia to give her an idea of what they would like and, sometimes, to assure her that they have spent the year being good. The letters, known as letterine (for little letters or lettere) are taken to a small church and set in colourful piles in front of the saint’s statue.

When I visited the church, I was struck by the variety of the letterine and the canny approach some of the authors had taken. To guarantee that the presents will go to the right place, the children make sure their names are on their messages.

Stefano wrote his in large capitals. A parent had possibly added on a red envelope that another letter was from la piccola Amelia—little Amelia. One child hedged her bets and addressed her requests to both Santa Lucia and Babbo Natale—Father Christmas!


A girl called Gaia wrote Cara Santa Lucia mi piacerebbe ricevere questi regali or Dear Santa Lucia, it would please me to receive these gifts and then stuck five pictures out of a catalogue showing what she hoped she would get. Next to the photograph of pink headphones she added Senza filo, literally without thread or wire, i.e. cordless, to make sure the right pair was delivered.

Until December 12, children drop in to the church, clutching their letters and dropping them on the top of the growing piles of missives. That evening, at home, they will prepare snacks for the saint and her donkey—she gets biscotti and milk, he gets carrots, water and sometimes hay. They then go to bed and are instructed to sleep: Santa Lucia is said to throw ashes into the eyes of naughty girls and boys. The next morning, on waking up, if they have been good, they will find lots of sweet treats including monete di cioccolato—chocolate coins—and, possibly, some of the gifts for which they had asked.

Written by Catriona Seth, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature
All Souls College, Oxford

Happy New Year!

Photo by Antonio Gabola on Unsplash

We hope you had a wonderful break over the festive period and enjoyed celebrating with friends and family where possible.

Despite ongoing restrictions, countries around the world celebrated the New Year with their usual impressive firework displays… as well as with some less well-known traditions designed to bring luck for the year ahead.

Did you know?

In Denmark, people smash plates on the doorsteps of their friends and family to bring them good fortune. As the tradition goes, the more broken plates, the more luck you’ll have! Godt nytår!

Photo by Maja Petric on Unsplash

In Spain, a common New Years Eve tradition is a grape-eating challenge – one grape on each of the twelve clock strikes which see in the new year, representing good luck for the twelve months to come. ¡Feliz año nuevo (y buen provecho)!

In Romania, one tradition involves dressing up as bears, playing instruments and dancing, rituals designed to ward off evil spirits from the year before. According to some Romanian legends, bears have healing powers and are considered to be sacred animals. Un An Nou Fericit!

Here at Oxford…

We’re already starting to think about the year ahead and the exciting projects we have planned. Applications for our 2022 UNIQ programme open on Monday 10th January. UNIQ offers high achieving state school pupils from underrepresented backgrounds ongoing academic support as well as a summer residential in Oxford.

We will be publishing more information about the programme on next week’s blog post, but feel free to have a look at the UNIQ website if you are interested in finding out more.

In the meantime, wherever you are in the world, we wish you all a very happy and healthy 2022!

A Flavour of Portugal

by Clare Tierney, a second-year undergraduate in French and Portuguese at St John’s College

One of the most exciting parts of learning an ab initio language (learning a language from scratch) is the ab initio culture, I came to realise. Since starting Portuguese at Oxford in October 2016, I have delved into literature from the last 500 years, works of art, film, but, perhaps most important to me personally has been the food and drink. Much to my recently-gained chagrin, Portuguese cuisine is a bit of an unknown quantity in Britain. Nando’s could speak for Portugal, though few diners are actually aware of its Luso heritage, leaving Spain’s chorizos to single-handedly sum up food on the Iberian peninsula. But Portugal can most certainly hold its own when it comes to wining and dining.

The faculty wasted no time in acquainting us with Portuguese wine, putting on a tasting of both Portuguese and Brazilian, red and white during our pre-sessional course, which is an intensive introduction to the language. Here we discovered vinho verde. Relatively uncommon in England, this lightly sparkling white is delightful, and trips to Lisbon and Porto this past summer confirmed my positive opinion. None of the binge drinking nonsense in a restaurante tradicional: it’s 6€ a bottle when dining in, which is inviting excitable young Brits like us to drink with food, i.e. responsibly! Then we come to the Sagres beer, which is affiliated with the Lisbon team Benfica, and is both light and flavourful. What’s more, it is named after the coastal promontory on which Henry the Navigator had a chapel built in 1459. At the geographical extremity of their homeland, the discoverers would pray for safety on their voyages to map the world. Nothing could be more Portuguese than this, uniting sailing the seas, beer and football in a single product.

So what about food? The ingenuity of persecuted Jews during the Inquisition has stayed part of the country’s gastronomy in the form of alheira: a deep-fried medley of meats shaped, as sausages, to resemble their Christian oppressors’ pork equivalent. The pastel de nata or custard tart was also the invention of the religious community, though in this case it was the Catholic monks’ means of generating income. From their humble origin in 1837, they were named one of the ‘Seven Gastronomic Marvels of Portugal’ in 2011. The alheira sausage was too named, along with paella’s lesser known (but clearly award-winning) sibling arroz de marisco (the self-explanatory seafood rice). And this is still neglecting the expertly made coffee at 60 cents a cup in the centre of the capital city, not to mention the infinite list of of beans and fish with their equally infinite lists of accompanying seasonings and cooking methods ranging from garlic and on the grill, to frying in olive oil. A year abroad full of omega-3, caffeine and theological heritage awaits me and my stomach!