Utente:Sara Andreoli/Sandbox

The fair of Maddalena, also known as Senigallia's fair, who was first named "fiera franca", used to took place in Senigallia for 15 days among the end of July and the middle of August. It used to inolve merchants from all over the world, even from outside Europe (Austria, France, England, Belgium, Denmark, Greece), from the Mediterranean countries, from Turkey to Syria, from Lybia to Egypt, from Cyprus to Jordan.

Description

A cannon shoting fired from the Rocca Roveresca signed the beginning and the end of the fair. It was the most important event in the city's life and it happened duly every year.

History

Its creation has always been connected to some events that could

allow it. First among everything, the lack of dangers and epidemics: a boat from “suspicious” places, in which some cases of infectious diseases had occurred to question everything. And, often, the malicious and unfounded warnings came from the nearby Ancona. In these cases it was a succession of delegations from Urbino and Rome who obtain the permission to celebrate the fair. It converted Senigallia, even if for a few days, in a huge oriental bazaar where you could find products of every kind. The difficult economic crisis of the Legation of Urbino in the previous decades of the XVIII century, compromised the textile industries, the ones of the leather tanning and the ones of the copper and iron processing. This difficult situation caused the need to increase a business center where you could at least sell those raw materials that, due to the closure of the factories, didn’t have the possibilities to be worked, while it caused the need, for the whole State, to provide for imported finished products which, especially in the field of fabrics, were essential for the population.

Other causes of the succes of this “fair-open air market” of  the eighteenth century can be identified in the unstoppable decadence of the nearby centers of Ancona and Recanati and in the the good government of the papal legates that encouraged the development of Senigallia’s commerce with wise decisions. The central authorities tried to go well with the needs of a short stay making for example a fair’s Court or a Consolate that could handle the disputes between merchants within three days and keep the businesses safe. So, in the first years of the eighteenth century while the passage of the troops began (first the Austrian’s ones then the Spanish’s ones), the Municipality enlisted soldiers and weapons to monitor the safety of the merchants. Even the small provisions, like the one that forgave the peddlers to sell in the fair’s streets, or the one about the “no-entry” to carts and carriages in those fair’s streets, prove the administrators’ constant attention for the implementetion of the commercial traffics. For the tutelage of the merchants’ businesses there were a lot of foreign Consulates in Senigallia (Austria, Denmark, Prussia, The Republic of Venice, Turkey, Sweden, Belgium, England, Malta and Spain). To the foreigners, grouped by nationality, were assigned areas and small shops for rent. Still today, in the port’s district, some streets like Cattaro, Siria, Samo, Corfù, Smirne, Narente, Rodi e Piazzale Cefalonia are the proof of the vivacity of the fair. The origin of the goods was often the same of the merchants that were selling them: “ferracce and weapons” from Brescia, “ordinary fabrics and second hand clothes” from Rome, “leather and foodstuffs” from Trieste, Venice, Ancona and Dalmazia, “pottery” from the Pesarese and Romagna, “silk umbrellas” from Rimini, “terraglie” from Abruzzo and from the Ascolano, “leather” from Bologna, “canapa and ropes” from Faenza, “timber and tobacco” from Fiume, “musical instruments” from Baviera, “crystals” from Boemia, “glass” from Venice, “toys” from Norimberga, “Swiss watches, salted fish and pork sausages” from Istria and Sicily, “shoes, boots and slippers” from Padova, “silk” from Bologna and Lione, “coats” from Arta ad Ancona, “books” from Venice, “paints” from Rome and “bricks” from the Marche. It made Senigallia an important city and made it famous all over Europe.

Notes

• Francesco Fiorani, Festa e fiera della Maddalena, su ccpo.it, 22 Luglio 2009. URL consultato il 19 maggio 2019.
• Carlo Leone, La Fiera di Senigallia rivivrà per un giorno nella mostra degli “Amici del Molo”, su centropagina.it, 21 marzo 2018. URL consultato il 19 maggio 2019.

Bibliography

• Roberto Marcucci, Sull'origine della fiera di Senigallia, in Archivio Storico Italiano, 5, vol. 38, 243ª ed., 1906, pp. 31-49.
• Alberto Polverari, Senigallia nella Storia 4 "Evo Contemporaneo", Senigallia, 2G, 1979
• Alberto Polverari, Senigallia nella Storia 3 "Evo Moderno", Senigallia, 2G, 1979
• Marinella Bonvini Mazzanti, Senigallia, Urbino, Quattro Venti, 1998
• M. Cassani, Mercanti e botteghe comunali alla fiera di Senigallia, in “Proposte e ricerca”, 59, 2007, pp. 67-82
• M. Moroni, Nel medio Adriatico..., cit., pp. 152 e ss.

Related Items

• Fiera di Sant'Agostino

External Links

• La fiera di Senigallia, su movio.beniculturali.it