August 12, 2008 - The tears of St. Lawrence source italiadonna.it Justine Bellavita
the night of August 10 every year the eyes of Italians in the world are turning to the hopeful heaven, to seize a shooting star. If scientifically the fall of the stars is due to pass within visual orbit Earth, the asteroid constellation Perseus (known precisely Perseids), culturally the rain of stars has been developed in a more poetic.
This night is in fact, since time immemorial, the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, from the third century buried in the homonymous basilica in Rome, and the shooting stars are the tears shed by the saint during his torture, wandering eternally in heaven, and down to earth until the day when Lorenzo died, creating a magical and full of hope.
On this night, in fact, we believe we can make dreams come true for all those who soffermino to recall the suffering of San Lorenzo, and every shooting star to pronounce the nursery rhyme "Stella, my beautiful star, I want ..." and expects the desired event during the year.
In popular tradition, the stars of August 10 is also called a fireworks San Lorenzo, as reminiscent of the fiery sparks from the grill on which the martyr was killed, then fly up into the sky. Although San Lorenzo did not die actually burned, but beheaded, in the popular imagination the idea of \u200b\u200blapilli flew in the sky has taken hold, and even today in Veneto is a proverb says "San Lorenzo of innocent martyrs, falls from the sky burning coals "." San Lorenzo "martyred, in a painting by PP Rubens C, Monaco, Alte Pinakothek
This tradition is so rooted and evocative that even the great poet Giovanni Pascoli you dedicated a song, called X in August, in which he recalled his father's death who was killed in an ambush that day.
And since this year the north has been cloudy here's a new view, the same falling from space:
