Lòm a Merz Festival in Mordano

The fire ritual that announces spring

Lòm a Merz — literally "lights of March" in the Romagna dialect — is one of the oldest and most deeply rooted propitiatory rites in Romagna. Between the end of February and the first days of March, as winter began to give way, farmers would light large bonfires in the farmyards and along riverbanks, burning vine cuttings and dry branches from winter pruning. The flames, which lit up the night and quickly died out without leaving embers, were intended to drive away the cold, ward off bad luck, and invoke a favorable year for the harvests.

In Mordano, a small municipality in the Province of Bologna overlooking the Imola plain on the border with Romagna, this tradition remains alive and well-attended. The event takes place in the garden of the Centro Giovani Flood, in via Roma, where the community gathers around the bonfire in an evening of simplicity and warmth.

An evening of community around the fire

The Lòm a Merz of Mordano is a village festival in the truest sense of the word: no imposing stages, but a food stand, good music, and the collective anticipation for the highlight, the lighting of the bonfire. It is an opportunity to meet with neighbors and friends, warm up with a steaming dish and a glass of mulled wine, and symbolically accompany the arrival of the warmer season.

A tradition that unites the entire territory

The Mordano event is part of a larger widespread festival that, during the same period, lights dozens of bonfires throughout Emilia-Romagna — from the Imola countryside to Ravenna, Forlì, and Faenza — in farmhouses, farmyards, and village centers. Mordano celebrates its Lòm a Merz on the same day as other nearby hamlets and villages, such as Bubano and Sesto Imolese, creating a network of fires that illuminates the plain on the most symbolic evening of the season's transition.

• Propitiatory rite of peasant origin, among the oldest in Romagna
• Evening bonfire in the garden of the Centro Giovani Flood
• Food stand with local specialties
• Family and deeply communal atmosphere