14 – SANT' ANTONIO NEWSSTAND

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Via Cesare Battisti

Sant'Antonio or fraticello, stone niche with carved statuette, unfortunately in very bad condition. Probably the stone sculpture covered by a brown layer that disfigures the original, would need a restoration to regain its original splendour.

Near number 31 in via Cesare Battisti (formerly del Gelso), about 3 meters high, is the votive aedicule dedicated to Sant'Antonio di Padova. Once the long street, paved with stone slabs (chjànche), which connects piazza Nicola e Costa with via Poerio, was better known as via della Vecchiarella, nickname of some Longos. Every year here too, a small party was held in honor of the Saint, as Nicola Longo wrote in La via della Vecchiarella, a short memoir published in "Fogli per Castellana", n° 9-10 (December 1982, p.149): "Almost all he corner of via Trieste and precisely at no. 31 (of via C. Battisti), lived with his family Mr. Martino Oliva (n.1877), a generous and hardworking man, the one who (among other things) was dedicated to the gas lighting systems of those times, on the occasion of the festivities of our country and neighboring countries. On the outside wall of his house, precisely at number 31, there was a niche, which still exists, inside which the Saint of Padua was located, and every year, starting on June 13, St. Anthony was honored on the initiative of his children by Martino Oliva (Peppino, Vituccio and Giovanni), who, for the occasion, installed the lighting starting from the corner of via Trieste, for about forty meters upwards [...] There was no shortage of people making u sprùssce (or spròssce, i.e. the walk) in that illuminated stretch […] From the elderly people of the time it was learned that, in their memory, that little party had always been held, punctually, on that date”.

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