June is a magical month in Tuscany. The nights are alive with a thousand noises, lights, and scents. This atmosphere is well caught in the Pfeiffer-Everett film of A Midsummer Night?s Dream, shot in Italy. June is the month of midsummer, when Tuscan days are at their longest, with twilight beginning around 9 p.m., when the joyous prospect of three long hot summer months is marred only by the thought that the days are already shortening towards autumn.
Lucciola, lucciola vien’ da me!
Little glow-worm, come to me!
Here, as in other cultures, midsummer celebrations have been modified from pagan rites into religious feast-days. Florence celebrates its patron saint, San Giovanni (St. John the Baptist) on June 24th with a sight not to be missed ? the final of the Historical Football Tournament in the gardens of Porta Romana! Florence, like most Italian towns, is divided into quartieri (districts) and, like most Italian quartieri, there is bitter rivalry among them.
Thus the White Team from Santo Spirito, the Blue Team from Santa Croce, the Green Team from San Giovanni, and the Red Team from Santa Maria Novella, over the centuries, have fought it out in some of the roughest and most violent football games ever; even nowadays, it is not uncommon for players to end up in hospital!
The day ends with all the lights being turned out along the Arno River for a splendid fireworks display, best admired from Piazzale Michelangelo. In Pisa, too, the midsummer celebration dates from ancient times and is connected with light, in-darkness. On June 16th, St. Ranieri’s Day, much of the town centre?s electric lighting is turned off and thousands of tiny oil lamps light up the night. Deep in the Tuscan countryside, Mother Nature puts on her own festival of light, thousands and thousands of glow-worms twinkle beside country paths and over fields, reflecting the myriads of stars visible (around 6000) in the June night sky. Children rush to catch a glow-worm and put it in a jam-jar by their bed, because during the night it will turn into a gold coin!
The natural world is at the very height of its activity now. The whole countryside bursts into flower and the scents of acacia and juniper and jasmine fill the warm night air.
An abundance of fruit is on the market – after cherries, come apricots and peaches, mulberries, and wild strawberries – as well as all the summer salad vegetables. Newly-born birds cheep in their nests and cicadas chirp relentlessly in the heat of the day – these clever insects can perceive a drop in temperature of even half-a-degree and when the air cools below the minimum acceptable to them, they all stop chirping instantly, like a choir whose conductor drops the baton.
Another insect much loved by Tuscan folklore is the cricket (il grillo), so much so that in the Cascine Park in Florence this month there is the Cricket Fair. Stalls laden with little cane baskets attract the attention of passing children, even though-in the age of ecology and animalism-the cages now contain mechanical toy crickets, while the real version is left in peace in its natural habitat.
