The atrium of the St. Martin church has always been seat of a variety of commercial activities: the money changer settled here to do their jobs, and also to obtain a rapid protection in case of emergency, and often the merchants set up here their desks with their wares. Above their heads carved on the left and on the right of the central door, 12 characters zealous are still carrying out their work, work on countryside, tied to the land and to food, activities that still gives life to the area, and inexhaustible source of richness for the tables.
The twelve months of the year represented by the twelve activities and the twelve zodiac signs are still there, impressed and well kept, close to the life of St. Martin and the stories of the saints.
In January, the first low relief from the right, a man sitting in front of a fire gets warm during the cold season. It’s the middle of winter, and the farmer fight the cold, living thanks to the provisions collected in the cellars.
In February, when the cold season is nomore so freezing, the farmer lives by hunting and fishing, and the bas relief illustrates a man with a fishing pole, and a boundel on his back. Even today fishing is a great source of wealth for our area. On the Versilia coast you can find lots of restaurants that cook all fish species that live along the coast, from the most common to the blue fish, the “poor” fish that you can buy at the fish market of Viareggio along the benches. In the hinterland, if you go up a bit, are commonly cooked trout, freshwater fish that lives freely in the streams of Garfagnana.
In March, the farmer is already back in the fields with his tools, and prunes the plants, which soon put the flowers and then the fruits. In the low relief the zealous worker is intent to prune a grapvine.
In April you sow. Ayoung man holds his bag tightly and with the hand scatters the seeds on the field… Nature flourishes again, and the experienced gatherers find a lot of flowers and wild erbs. Asparagus, lettuce, tarassaco, rapunzel, cicerbite…
May is probably a tribute to the Virgin, with a young knight holding a rose.
In June, the farmer reap the first benefits of his work, mowing the ears of corn that then will gather into barns.
In July, the first of the bas reliefs on the left, the farmer claps the ears, lying in the yard, to get the wheat which then will work to do flour. Wheat flour, but also from corn, the “formenton”, in the yellow and red versions, “sessantino” and other varieties now disappeared.
August is time for harvesting the fruit from the trees. Peach mora di Dolfo, berries and finally apples are just some of the traditional fruits of our lands, cultivated since ancient times.
September is the first of two months dedicated to grapes and wine. The farmer do to the “crushing” of the grapes in the vat, which until not long times ago was done without the aid of machinery, and then you did in large vats where it was poured the crop of the grape harvest, and crushed with feet to separate the juice from the must. Women, the elderly, children, now as then, are engaged in the harvest, which has always been a day of work and celebrations.
in October, the second month dedicated to wine, the farmer of the bas relief is transferring the wine into the barrels, which were then stored in cellars, for the fermentation.
In november, when fields do no more bear fruits, the farmer with the ox and the plow tills the soil, preparing it for the months of rest before the start of a new cycle.
Finally in December, when the fields lie under blankets of white snow, or are hardened by the frosts, the farmer does the slaughter of animals, the best of which, perhaps the pig that is represented in the bas relief, will be on the table on Christmas.
