The town of Pico, and towns throughout Italy, celebrate the feast of St Rocco on August 16. 

St Rocco is a healer who traveled across Europe caring for people with the plague. Legend has it, St Rocco  himself was also sick, and when the saint was dying in the forest, a local hunting dog stole bread from his master and brought it to the saint as nourishment. He also was known to lick his sores to help heal him. Today, St. Rocco is known as the patron saint of dogs. The statue of Saint Rocco is always shown with his leg exposed showing the plague sore on his thigh, and always with the dog holding a piece of bread in its mouth by his side. 

The morning began with what I lovingly refer to as the “get your ass to church” bells. They rang at odd times: 7:22am, 7:37am, 7:50am, and again from 8:00am-8:04, and a final set at 8:05am. 

Families who live outside the borgo parked wherever they could find space and walked up the hill to Sant Antonino, the 16th Century church 600 feet from our home. Many women and children were carrying decorated baskets filled with individually wrapped balls of bread. 

Then, at 8:13am, the priest said a few words outside of the church, some fireworks were set off, and the procession began around town. First, three altar boys carrying a cross and incense. Next were two lines of 100 people we think are members of the St Rocco association. Next, the band. Then families (mostly women and children) carrying baskets with bread, and finally the statue of St. Rocco and the dog followed by the priest, Mayor and the Mayor’s wife and then anyone who wanted to join the procession, including Paul and I. Fireworks continued at what seemed like sporadic times throughout the procession. 

The procession continued through the center of town.

After an hour, the procession reached the church of St. Rocco. The baskets of bread were gathered at the entrance to St Rocco church and mass was held outside since the church can probably hold 50 people and there were probably 200-300 people at mass. 

At one point during mass, it was time for the collection and I didn’t see anyone giving bills – only coins. We’ve collected a lot of coins during this trip and now we know the easiest way to turn them in: church collection!

Mass ended after an hour, people grabbed their baskets of bread, fireworks commenced and by 10:10 the church bells started ringing again.

The procession continued on to the church where it all began at 8am, more blessings took place inside the church of Sant Antonio, and after church ended people were gladly gifting balls of bread to anyone in the town, just as the dog had given bread to St. Rocco.