St Valentine was Italian (what else?) and was Bishop of Terni, martyred in Rome in the 3rd century.
Valentine had no connection with February 14th, which is the day birds are supposed to mate.
A pair of golden eagles mated this year on 14th February in front of a huge face of Mussolini carved into the hillside near the Marche town of Acqualanga. The act has been posted on You Tube.
Another reason for the date is that it is near the Roman festival of Lupercal when young men worshipping the cult of Romulus, Remus and the She Wolf (La Lupa) dressed only in the skins of newly killed goats, beat their prospective partners with slivers of goatskin.
My researches indicate that this practice is not now popular.
Italians spent 100 million euros on 22 million flowers for Valentine’s Day. Although lilies and orchids are popular, roses account for 60% of all flowers sold during this period.
By the end of Thursday, Italians are expected to have handed over 14 million roses, at a cost of some 45 million euros. That is about 10 times the amount spent on chocolates.
Red roses are regarded as the classic, if somewhat banal sign of passion, while white ones indicate pure, spiritual love. Musky pink indicates a capricious beauty, a peach colour means secret love and light pink highlights friendship and gratitude. Yellow roses can point to the passion connected to overpowering jealousy but can also hint at a declining love.
As can beating your partner with slivers of goatskin.
In other news,
Italians have a passion for comic strips. 2,800 are published per year, of which 58% are translated from Japanes and Korean
An Italian survey for the anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol on 16th February determined that Italy has 11,876,691,354 trees of more than 1.3 metres in height and 4.5cm in diameter, around 200 per person.
The most common species is the beech, diffuse in the Appenines.
Emilia Romagna and Umbria are the most densely forested with over 1,800 trees per hectare, while the Northern regions of Valle d’Aosta and Alto Adige have around 700.
The Kyoto anniversary was also celebrated by turning off the lights. Darkness descended on The Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, Saint Mark's Square in Venice, and the Italian parliament (not much change there, then).
Italy’s economy is thought to have contracted in the 4th quarter of 2007, despite paying a lot of people to count the trees, but no one is sure because a technical problem held up production of the data.
Although official statistics show that Italy has one of the lowest employment rates in Europe, an estimated 6m Italians are thought to have two jobs.
Italy has over 120,000 architects, more than any country in Europe. Germany is second with 50,000; Finland has only 2,280.
Police have uncovered the hideout of Mafia boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo, astonishingly near Palermo in Sicily. The Lo Piccolo clan controlled much of Palermo through charging businesses and shops 'pizzi' of between 500 and 10,000 euros a month. They even imposed a fixed charge of 15 euros to keep electricity running in parts of the Sicilian capital (it is thought many customers complained they weren’t succeeding).
A survey of prostitutes in Italy has shown 34% hold degrees or diplomas, 11% speak at least one foreign language correctly, 9% read five or six books a year and 38% read at least one newspaper a day. Over 50% of prostitutes prefer to watch political talk shows to reality shows. 26% prefer to exercise their profession in the early afternoon, from 1pm to 3pm, while only 16% still opt for the night.
Researchers from the universities of Pavia and Milan, using a small nuclear reactor to examine strands of his hair, have determined the British did not poison Napoleon
The pigeons in Venice costs each resident some 275 euros a year to clean up the mess.
The largest memorabilia show ever dedicated to Pinocchio will be held in Milan in March. Carlo Collodi's Adventures of Pinocchio, whose nose grew longer and longer if he told a lie, was first published in 1883 and is Italy's most printed book after the Bible in the last 100 years. In Italy today there are 400 Pinocchio collectors.
There is a new Euro-quality level for Neapolitan pizzas, which must be made only of hardwheat flour, fresh yeast, water and sea salt, with a topping of olive oil, San Marzano tomatoes (in slices no thicker than 8mm) mozzarella di bufala and basil.
Football is a major export for Italy. Following England’s appointment of Fabio Cappello, former Italy manager Giovanni Trapattoni is the new manager of Ireland.
Michele 'The Pope' Greco, known for his ability to mediate between the various families in the Sicilian Mafia has died aged 83.
Benedict ‘The Pope’ XVI has instructed bishops to show ''greater sobriety and rigour'' when deciding candidates for sainthood. They over-promote local heroes, and their noses are getting longer and longer.
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