St John the Baptist’s Church, San Lorenzo Vecchio, Lake Bolsena, from afar

Until the 1920s malaria was the scourge of the Italy. Often entire communities were decimated because the origins of the disease were unknown. The name Malaria comes from the belief that bad air (lit. mal aria) was the cause. In English it was commonly called the Ague.

Church of San Lorenzo Vecchio

One solution was to move the town away from the pestilential air to higher ground, often to a healthy area called piano sano, the healthy plateau.   In the XVIII century much of the lakeside town of San Lorenzo was demolished, its stones transported to the heights above Lake Bolsena and re-erected as San Lorenzo Nuovo with an octagonal piazza. The church of St John the Baptist, however, was spared, though its roof has fallen in.

A mournful view of the church of St John the Baptist

The old town lay astride the pilgrims’ road to Rome known as the Via Francigena, the Frankish Road, which until the Reformation led all the way from Canterbury.

Surviving fresco

The church designed by Pietro Tartarino, and completed in 1590 is unusual. It is octagonal, and occupies a site once sacred to the Etruscan and  for whom Lake Bolsena was the centre of their cult, the Omphalos, the navel of their world. The XVIII century piazza in San Lorenzo Nuovo is also octagonal.

St John the Baptist’s church

Catholic miracles abound in places where the old religion proved particularly hard to eradicate. Nearby Bolsena has not one , but two miracles associated with the town, a sign that adherence to the old religion was particularly obdurate. This church in Val di Lago, close by the Etruscan city of Tyre, may mark the site of the miracle of Santa Cristina. Though not the case here, a church raised on the site of a miraculous defeat of paganism is often dedicated to St Michael and the pagan power is represented as a dragon. However, the octagonal shape, the preferred form of Templar churches, could be significant.

Chancel of St John’s church with surviving roof

The roof over the chancel has survived, as have some frescoes and even some stucco sculpture. There even seems to be some blast damage, a reminder that the war passed through here in 1944. All in all the church of San Lorenzo Vecchio is a miracle in itself, of survival.

The charm of the place lies in its desolate remoteness among the swamps near Lake Bolsena. However a quite useless fence was erected in 2012, and mock cast-iron lamp-posts were scattered about. A case of European Union largesse being sprinkled  on ostensibly worthy projects perhaps? It would not surprise me if some over enthused local politician were to raise European Union funds to erect a concrete roof, re-stucco the building and spray paint it his mistresses’ favourite colour of tasteful pork pink. It would not be the first time.

St John the Baptist’s has a lugubrious beauty in winter

May Patrick Nicholas’ photographic workshop: Tuscany, Orvieto, Lake Bolsena and Barabbata festival.

May festival at Lake Bolsena, Italy

 Start the summer with Camera Etrusca’s Barabbata Festival Workshop with led by patrick Nicholas. Held every year on May 14 on the shores of Lake Bolsena. This joyous festival with pagan origins has colourful floats drawn by men and animals through the picturesque fishing village (the womenfolk just cast blossom from the balconies) is held to mark the beginning of summer.
As usual we would like to offer a discount to all the people that want to start the summer season with us.

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Barabbata folk festival boat full of bread

the town and up to the church at the top of the hill. What sets it apart from thousands of other religious festivals is the enthusiasm with which the townsfolk construct their highly elaborate floats each year.

Women observe from balconies

These have got so big over the years that most of them can no longer manage the narrow lanes of the old town and have to be paraded along the main thoroughfare. Despite its devotion to the Madonna it’s an all male affair, the woman are restricted to casting flowers from their balconies. The ‘modern’ festival dates back to 1563 though it probably has its origins in pagan Etruscan festivities.

The trades involved are the fishermen; the shepherds; the ‘butteri’, the cowboys of the Maremma on their fine horses; the herdsmen with their oxen and the villani, the villains or peasants, all dressed in their traditional costume.

Ave Maria!

Everything is accompanied by loud cheering of “Evviva Maria, evviva il santisimo sacramento, Evviva la Madonna!” and there is also a noisy local band led, rather incongruously given the  antiquity of the festival, by majorettes twirling their batons.

The festival starts at 4.00 AM with a drummer beating round the town awakening all the participants to put the finishing touches to their floats.

Aftermath: petals by the thousand

They then start forming up along the lake shore from about 8 AM which is when we aim to be there, and the procession heads off through the town from 9 o’clock arriving at the church of the Madonna del Monte above the town at around noon where everyone then indulges in a well deserved wine swilling picnic surrounded by their on-looking animals. The Barabbata is a wonderful way to herald in the summer.

Journey’s end, plenty of “vino”

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hoary fisherfolk

CAMERA ETRUSCA will take you all around its shores. Bolsena is still a working lake, the fishing industry thrives in the village of Marta which is one of favourite places with its brightly coloured fishing boats, narrow cobbled streets and ancient buildings.The fisherman come in every morning with their catch of perch, pike, eel and coregone the local speciality – it’s quite delicious and not at all like a freshwater fish and you’ll find it all the lakeside restaurants.  The fishermen with their weather lined faces and air of bonhomie are happy to be photographed with their nets and paraphernalia. This is an excellent place to practice portraiture.

Lake Bolsena is an extinct volcano 13km long by 11 wide with two islands, both containing old villas, churches and ruined castles, but now uninhabited.

Bizentina Island

On occasions we hire a boat to visit the islands which, with their high cliffs surmounted by chapels and ruins, are like something from a gothic novel. The rock is honey coloured tufa, the sand is volcanic and black. Occasionally around the islands it is possible to spot a flamingo, while grey herons, egrets and the gorgeously coloured bee-eater are common.

High on the ruins of Visentium

Legend has it that the Etruscans migrated from drought stricken Lydia in Asia Minor  around 900 BC. When they first saw the vast expanse of fresh water that is Bolsena it must have seemed like an earthly paradise to the parched navigators. Not surprising that they made the lake the centre of their cult, and it was somewhere here on its shores that the gathering of the clans took place every year, the mysterious Fanum Voltumnae  the exact location of which is still wrapped in mystery.

Willow patterns

 Bolsena is a lake of  miracles. St  Christina was mercilessly tossed into the lake by her pagan father, who thoughtfully tied a rock round her ankles, this may well refer to the Christian vanquishment of the pagan Voltumna.

Santa Cristina's footprints

The rock tied around Christina’s feet to sink her, and on which she miraculously floated back to the surface, is the prized relic of Bolsena’s beautiful miracle church, and whatever its origins the stone has two small footprints clearly visible.

A photographic  excursion to Lake Bolsena can easily last all day there is so much to see, do, and photograph. This is one of the great landscapes of Italy, or perhaps we should say lakescape.

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