St. Carlo’s fair

Yesterday

Today

St. Carlo’s fair falls in autumn, the period when the farmer’s works ended. It takes place the first days of November and it is dedicated to St. Carlo, the patron saint of our town. St. Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584) was archbishop in the Milan diocese to which our town belonged and he visited it especially during the plague in 1576.

The centre of the square has always been Garibaldi square where the funfair and other attractions are set.

Modern merry-go-rounds are quite different from the past ones that were controlled by hand. The most famous was the horses' roundabout: children liked these wooden horses and they rode them pretending to be skilled knights.

In these days music, lights, sweets flavours spread throughout the nearby streets creating the typical ‘fair’ atmosphere which makes old people remember their past.

In the twenties people from the nearby villages went there on foot or by bike, braving bad weather and so the muddy streets. Some of them left their home early in the morning and stayed there until night. There were also group of people who got to the town square by coach and pair.

The fair isn’t only an amusing place; it also offers different kinds of entertainment: pictures and paintings exhibitions, an exhibition of agricultural machinery and cars, cultural events.

All around the square and along the nearby streets there is the traditional street market where you can buy every kind of thing.

Once you could also see the bovine exposition in via Guerrazzi : animals were fastened to big metal rings, which can still be seen on the long wall of that street.

The fair was and is still nowadays an important festival in Casalmaggiore : in our local dialect it is called “AL FIRON”