The Blumari of Montefosca

A Rite from Afar

At the top of the Natisone Valleys, where Friuli meets Slovenian culture, there is a remote and isolated hamlet of Pulfero: Montefosca. Here survives one of the oldest and most evocative rites in the entire Alpine arc, the Blumari, the last trace of a much more complex archaic carnival, repeated every year with unchanged fidelity. The name seems to recall the word Blume, "flower".

The Costumes: A Flowering Tree

The protagonists are strictly unmarried young men, always in odd numbers, who prepare for their run by wearing white clothes, white wool socks, black velvet slippers (the zeki) and three cowbells tied to their backs with an intricate knot of ropes. Completing the look is the tall straw hat: from the crown rises a long stem from which other branches cascade, all decorated with strips of colored paper, like a flowering tree.

The Run That Encompasses the Village

In the early afternoon, the Blumari cross and "encompass" the hamlets of Montefosca and Paceida several times, running until sunset. It is an ancient gesture more than a spectacle: it symbolizes the transition from winter to spring and from youth to adulthood, tracing invisible boundaries between the end of the cold season and rebirth. Today, due to the depopulation of the mountains, the run has become an intergenerational shared experience, keeping alive a tradition that still manages to move the community.

The Carnival of the Valleys

The Blumari event is the culmination of the carnival of the Nediške Doline, the Natisone Valleys, promoted by the Pro Loco Nediške Doline - Valli del Natisone APS with the Municipality of Pulfero. A precious ethnographic heritage, recognized as one of the most important manifestations of Alpine and Slovenian-Friulian folklore.