San Giovanni, Festa of (Real)

San Giovanni, Festa of (Real),The great summer festival of Florence, of which city San Giovanni was the patron saint; held on Midsummer Day (St. John's Day). "The day of San Giovanni . . . A day of peculiar rejoicing to Florence . . . Ushered in by a vigil duly kept in strict old Florentine fashion, with much dancing, with much street jesting, and perhaps with not a little stone-throwing and windowbreaking, but emphatically with certain street sights such as could only be provided by a city which held in its service a clever Cecca, engineer and architect, valuable alike in sieges and shows." Tito Melema, after watching the San Giovanni procession, renews his acquaintance with the contadina Tessa, and after returning from an excursion with her sees Fra Luca, who gives him a letter from his lost foster-father Baldassarre Calvo.

<em>Romola</em>

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