The "Festa del Covo" is Born

On 30th March 1938 there was the sacrilegious theft of the prodigious Sacred Icon, which was a traumatic event that deeply struck the conscience of the community, causing anger and consternation. The icon was soon found, but without its precious ornaments, so a solemn reparation ceremony with the coronation of the Virgin with a new crown of gemstones took place in Osimo Cathedral.

To commemorate this event and pay a more personal tribute to the Madonna, the following year the farmers of Campocavallo created an event that would distinguish them, both at that time and for the years to come. They wanted the feast to represent something authentic, something that came from the depths of their hearts. They wanted it to be a good deed, a simple but sincere devotional homage.

The idea of the Covo came from the Wheat Feast in Candia, Ancona. At that time, in fact, one of the pilgrimages that periodically took place in Campocavallo was the pilgrimage from the nearby village of Candia, where there was the ancient tradition, after threshing, of building a cart decorated with sheaves of wheat, called Covo or Carroccio di Grano, and offering it to the Madonna as a gift to thank her for the harvest.

Moved by his devotion to the Madonna but also by his peasant pride, which made him want to equal if not surpass Candia in originality, Clemente Ciavattini, a farmer and a wise and very pious man from Campocavallo, who was defined by the chronicles of the time as being "particularly inclined to organize festivals", thought of creating a cart made of wheat in Campocavallo, too. “If they did it, we can do it too!”, he would to repeat.

Progenitor of a very large peasant family, Ciavattini called his sons and some local farmers to collaborate on the project. They were the creators, the founders and the organizers of the first “Festa del Covo” in Campocavallo in 1939. The women of their respective families gave their special contribution, too. In fact, they were skilled in weaving the ears of wheat and it was the use of intertwined ears that immediately distinguished the Covo of Campocavallo from that of Candia, for which the ears of wheat were used individually.

The first Covo symbolically depicted the Coronation Crown, the same crown that in the previous months had been used to adorn the Sacred Icon of the Blessed Virgin of Sorrows after the theft, although that crown was made of gold and not of ears of wheat. The first “Festa del Covo” was held on Sunday 13th August 1939. Since then, except for the interruption due to the war, the Covo has been created every year with the same passion and ever-greater artistic skill. The event takes place on the first Sunday of August and all the inhabitants of Campocavallo, from the youngest to the oldest, contribute to its successful outcome.