April
SANT'ANTIOCO
THE FEAST OF SAINT ANTIOCO MARTIRE
The
most important celebrations, this year, they are developed on April 19, and
they are characterized over that from songs, dances, fireworks display and art-exhibitions,
also from the procession of the saint with the Relics, accompanied by numerous
folk groups that unthread with the customs traditional Sardinians. Educated
by his mother to the Christian faith, well soon it was disliked to the same
emperor and Antioco he was submitted to every kind of torture but the saint,
supported by an unshakable faith, it overcame all the dangers. In the place
of his death, happened AD around 126, you was built the church that brings his
name. As you has shown from the Latin epigraph, of the century VII, that overhung
the grave of the saint and today bulwark in the chapel of Saint Antioco of the
cathedral of Iglesias. In 1089 the Judge Constantine it gave Vittorini of Marsiglia
to the monks the church of Saint Antioco in Sulcis, while, in 1124, another
judge of Cagliari, 
Mariano
Torchitorio, attributed the whole island of the Sulcis to the saint that, from
that moment, she will take the name of Island of Saint Antioco. Few saints have
been in Sardinia very honorable and revered as Saint Antioco; his name was frequently
imposed as name of baptism; to him temples were raised, churches, oratorical
and in his honor feasts and parties were organized. The great party in honor
of the Saint can be let go up again to the XI or XII century, but it is alone
till now of 1520 the most ancient known document that speaks of the feast that
therefore this year celebrates his 480 ^ edition. To half the XVI century, cause
the continuous raids of the Barbaric pirates, the island went depopulating him,
for which been made necessary to preserve the simulacrum in the cathedral of
Iglesias with the promise that, you end the raids and when the island would
have populated of new people, this would have returned in the city sulcitana.
Four days before the party the Chapter was dealt with the transfer of the statue
of the saint; the simulacrum dressed for the occasion of the red robe, place
on a wagon hauled by flowered oxen, went out of Iglesias and, after a standstill
to Barega, passing for Barbusi and Saint Giovanni Suergiu, reached the island
of Saint Antioco. During the journey, a campanella and a flag set in the wagon
aloft they announced the passage of the Saint to the numerous wandering come
from the whole Sardinia, disseminated along the run. The 1593 celebrations saw
the share of 4.125 horses, 3.000 traccas (wagons hauled by oxen), 100
open wagons, 4.000 carters, 350 flagged boats, 39.000 persons and they were
celebrated 800 masses with the presence of 2383 deriving priests from the whole
Sardinia. After the recovery of the relics, happened March 18 th 1615, over
the simulacrum, the skull and crossbones of the saint was also transported by
Iglesias to Saint Antioco. It regains her some relic it gave new impulse to
the party and more and more numerous, from the whole Sardinia, the pilgrims
arrived to beg on the grave of the Saint. For three days, at night, on the church
square, on the plazas and to the harbor piles of firewood, around which ate
each other burned, he drank, the Sardinian dance was danced and he sang accompanied
from the guitars and from the launeddas (tool to reeds). There were then
the years of the II world war and the danger of the bombardments it the arrival
of the pilgrims up to the April of 1943 when a presumed unloading of the enemy,
that would be due to happen in a secret place of Sardinia, didn't allow the
carrying out of the party.
ITINERARY
DORGALI AND CALAGONONE
Dorgali
and Cove Gonone, situated in the part I center oriental of Sardinia, they are
attainable easily from the National Road 131, ramification Nuoro-Olbia, taking,
to the Km. 70, the alternative Lula - Dorgali. Along the connection Lula-Dorgali,
to few kilometers from the National Road 131, a poster points out the Grave
of Giants of she Sa Ena ‘e Thomes, in granite, constituted by an
exedra of nailed in stones in the ground with to the center a tall stele more
than three meters. Continuing on the provincial road, the alternative for Galtellì,
is arrived a little further to the village nuragico of Serra 'e Orrios,
the preserved best of the island and what it goes up again to the VIII-VII sec.
Inside some huts, a hearth, the floor of flat slabs and the seat at the base
of the wall. To the Km 207 of the National Road 125, direction Orosei, a path
of around 400 meters it conducts to the dolmen Motorra, what it goes
up again to the 2100 a.C., in basaltic stone, with funeral room of meters 2,10
for 1,80, in which nine plates hammered on the ground sustain a great and dish
slab of coverage. Along the road Nuoro-Orosei, 7 Kms before Galtellì,
a path conducts to the Grave of Giants of Biristeddi and the village
nuragico Purgatoriu. Continuing in the path, is arrived to the throat
of the river Cedrino, on the edge of which the nuraghe Purgatoriu is
risen, with the time of the collapsed tower, but with, to the entry, a beautiful
corridor to tholos. Not away from the gallery of Cove Gonone, a path of around
500 meters it conducts to the dolmen of Mountain Longu built in stone
to tread, to rectangular plant, with a big slab of coverage leaned on four supports
to form a tomb room of 2,5 meters you square and tall 1,20 meters. Always in
territory of Dorgali, the village nuragico of Tiscali, to the strata of the
Supramonte of Dorgali, Oliena and Orgosolo. Inside a dolina, the people nuragiche
has built two villages that count numerous huts, to the of under of the wall
collapsed not of the cave as extreme I shelter following the Roman invasion.
From the opposite part of the dolina, another group of huts also prepared under
a prominence of the wall and with the same characteristics of the first. The
installation seems to go up again to the last period nuragico, around
the VI - II sec. The first one of the road is found to the right for Orosei,
few kilometers out of the country, and it owes her name, thorn of the cave,
to the presence of an enormous stalactite-stalagmite, tall 38 meters, to the
center of an immense room. The cave of the Sea Ox, situated along the
coast to 4 Kms from Cove Gonone, is attainable only by sea and is an immense
cavern at the base of a wall tall 30 meters. In around half time, with a comfortable
path, the underground salty lake, the innumerable columns of stalactites and
stalagmites are admired, with the multiform concretions of varied colors and
the room of the Beach of the Seals, an immense saloon, to the center
of which is risen a big column that seems to support the time; here sweet waters
are mixed to the salty waters with a small fall. Here it is spaced by the workmanship
of the gold to that of the carpet in the manufacturing field and from the production
of typical sweets to that of wines and oil from the valuable qualities in the
food field. Sardinian sweets, Dorgali, Esca. A known trinomial in the
whole Sardinia for the goodness of the products among which they detach the
famous fisheries of Dorgali and the fabulous biscuits, flower to the buttonhole
of a production that spaces from the tiliccas to the papassinas, from the pastas
to the wedding cakes.
