Since our friends moved to Salento, the southernmost part of Puglia, we’ve felt the constant urge and temptation to speak about this ancient, mysterious, and beautiful land.
A few days ago, the closing evening of the Notte della Taranta took place, an itinerant festival of traditional Salento music (the pizzica) held every August, which ends with a huge final concert in Melpignano. The “Concertone,” as the final show is called, is organized to revive the tradition of the Pizzica and the Taranta—an insistent, highly rhythmic music and its corresponding dance, which superficially recalls the Neapolitan tarantella.
But let’s take one step back in time to explain a phenomenon that, from ancient times until the 1950s, characterized this region.
The origin of the taranta is tied to tarantism (a condition believed to be caused by the bite of a spider—the tarantula—common in Salento during summer), and probably stems from the rites of ancient Greek culture.
The frenzied, sensual dance accompanying the music can easily be traced back to Dionysian cults and related orgiastic rituals, which over time were reshaped to become socially acceptable.
According to Salento tradition, a wide range of symptoms—unexplained illness, fatigue, abdominal or muscular pain, depression, states of prostration, trance, catatonia, convulsions, epilepsy, and delirium—were attributed to the spider’s bite. As often happened, women were more frequently the victims of these conditions.
In the rural world, people rarely turned to doctors. The most common remedy was a kind of choreo-musical exorcism: exhausting dance sessions accompanied by obsessive, rhythmic music, believed to help the “tarantata” (the bitten woman) expel the spider’s venom and heal.
The ritual usually took place privately in the victim’s home. A ritual perimeter was set up, often marked with a sheet on which the woman would dance. A group of seasoned musicians—using tambourines, accordions, and violins—played for her. Each type of spider was believed to have a different temperament: there was the “singing taranta,” the “dancing taranta,” the vain one, the lascivious one, the melancholy one. Each required a different kind of music, identified by the musicians through the woman’s responses.
Music and dance could last for days. When the home ritual was not enough, the sick woman was taken to the Chapel of Saint Paul in Galatina, considered the protector of the tarantati.
Legend says that the apostles Peter and Paul, while traveling, stopped in Galatina, hosted by a local man in his house—the site of today’s chapel. In gratitude, Saint Paul gave the man and his descendants the power to heal anyone bitten by poisonous spiders (“tarante” in dialect). By drinking water from the well and making the sign of the cross on the wound, the sickness could be defeated.
At the back of the chapel, there is still an (inactive) well once considered a source of healing.
The Church tried to “domesticate” what appeared to be a pagan rite by linking it to Saint Paul. Since the apostle, according to the Scriptures, survived a viper’s bite, the healing feast was fixed on June 29, his feast day. Faith and superstition, Christianity and paganism, were thus blended. Saint Paul became the salvific figure in tarantism practices.
Often, though, healing was temporary. Tarantism was cyclical, reappearing with summer. On June 29, during the great feast of Saints Peter and Paul, crowds gathered at the chapel of Saint Paul to watch the procession of the tarantate. Carts carried the poor women, exhausted from nights of convulsions on the church square, dressed in white cotton skirts, with vacant eyes, accompanied by embarrassed and sorrowful relatives. Inside the chapel, cries, laments, and ancient chants filled the space—almost magical formulas to heal. Some imitated the spider’s movements, rolling on the floor, others jumped on the altar to scratch the image of Saint Paul crushing a serpent and a tarantula.
The chapel was eventually deconsecrated due to the semi-obscene acts of the convulsing women. This reflected the Church’s distancing from a popular ritual that carried pagan and magical undertones. Afterward, the women were carried out into the crowd, rolling on sheets laid on the ground, drinking water from the miraculous well, sometimes vomiting it back, before falling into semi-consciousness. Healing—temporary as it was—had occurred.
Science has since shown that the tarantula (Lycosa tarentula) delivers a painful but harmless bite. The women were instead trapped in rigid emotional and sexual restrictions, burdened by childcare, domestic work, and heavy summer labor in the fields. Exhausted and frustrated, they fell into states of psychic delirium not recognized as such.
Anthropologist Ernesto De Martino studied tarantism in the 1960s, traveling to Salento with a team of doctors and sociologists. His book The Land of Remorse argues that tarantism was not a medical condition but an outlet for unresolved psychological conflicts. It gave women a socially tolerated way to express pain, grief, anger, and trauma.
Anthropologist Georges Lapassade compared tarantism to Brazilian macumba or Moroccan trance rituals, where rhythmic drumming induces altered states of consciousness. For him, the tambourine and violin triggered the trance, while the community acted as a therapeutic group supporting the afflicted.
By the 1960s, Galatina’s inhabitants began to view these rites as backward and superstitious, and the tradition faded. By the 1990s, however, tarantism and its music resurfaced as folklore. The pizzica became widely played, danced, and sung at festivals, soon becoming a symbol of Salento’s identity. With events like La Notte della Taranta, the music reached mass audiences, drawing thousands of spectators worldwide.
Commercialization has followed, not always pleasantly. My sister, trying to attend the Melpignano concert this summer, gave up when she learned parking was 5 km away—too much for a village of only 2,000 people. The Galatina festival, reintroduced only recently, may be smaller and more manageable.
Our advice: avoid Puglia in July and especially August, due to the heat and tourist crowds. Instead, consider late June, when you can attend the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 28–30). You’ll find illuminations, stalls, music, folk shows, and fireworks—without the August chaos.
Some tips before we leave you:
• The square of Melpignano, no longer the venue for the Notte della Taranta because it’s too small, is still beautiful and worth visiting.
• In Galatina, don’t miss the pasticciotto, a pastry filled with custard cream. Try it freshly baked at Andrea Scalone’s bakery—it’s unforgettable.
• Visit the Basilica of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a masterpiece (we’ll dedicate an article to it).
• The Chapel of Saint Paul is at Corso Garibaldi 2, part of Palazzo Tondi-Vignola. There you may meet Prof. Gianfranco Conese, happy to explain the history. His English is imperfect, but his passion is unforgettable.
• If you’re interested, stop at the Tarantism House Museum (Piazza D. Alighieri 51) for documents, films, photos, and texts on the phenomenon.
A personal anecdote to conclude: years ago, when Salento was still bearable in August, I went to a village festival with friends. A group was scheduled to play pizzica. At the time, I dismissed folk music, but the rhythm—then unknown to me—took hold. I danced barefoot all night on the rough, warm pavement without stopping. Only later, when it was time to leave, did I realize my feet were scraped raw.
Conclusion: I don’t recall my frustrations back then, but clearly something wasn’t right. The musical exorcism worked—even on a snobbish, “emancipated” Milanese like me.
Betti