Monaco - Monte Carlo - Culture

With more than 300 days a year of sunshine, residents in Monaco can take advantage of the Mediterranean, and all of its seaside activities. Moreover, Monaco's close proximity to the Southern Alps, which are only 1 hour away by car, allows for easy access to the ski slopes.

A climate of security reigns in Monaco Monte-Carlo making this prestigious setting even more appreciable. Security specialists are unanimous; it would be difficult to live in a place safer than Monaco.

One policeman for every 100 residents, a system of 24-hour video surveillance spanning the entire surface area of the Principality, including the majority of residence halls, a transmitting system worthy of the best armies in the world, the possibility of blocking all access in and out of the Principality in several minutes. And we mustn't forget the surveillance teams inside of the Casino and in all of the gambling establishments and hotels.

Residents in Monaco, representing 108 different nationalities, can place their children in different schools, which are either a part of or affiliated with the Ministry of Education.

The sheer number of cultural events each year encourages the learning of artistic disciplines, as does the presence of reputable establishments such as the Rainier III Academy of Music, the Academy of Classical Dance and the Princess Grace Municipal Plastic Art School.

The educational program and the diplomas obtained are the same as in France. The only difference in Monaco is that children not only begin learning English in Elementary school, but they are also introduced to the traditional language and history of Monaco. The rate of success for passing the French National Baccalauréat exam is close to 90%.

A highly placed member of the French police force manages the Monaco police department and the police department is amongst the most modern and efficient in Europe. The rule imposed by Prince Rainier is simple: " Monaco must have total security."

As would follow, the orders given to the 400 police officers, who must go through a 2-year intensive training program, are extremely strict: anything detrimental to the harmonious atmosphere in Monaco is forbidden, begging is non-existent, indecent clothing is prohibited and traffic laws are rigorously enforced. The court system in Monaco almost always pronounces maximum sentences. The result is an incredibly low rate of delinquency, a dream for any Minister of the Interior.

As one jeweller in Monaco put it: " The jewels of the most well-known jewellers were made to be worn, even in the street, and not to be left in the safety deposit box. This is not the case in Monaco.".

Religious and civil traditions have been upheld for centuries in the Principality. They are sometimes linked, rites and ceremonies being accompanied by popular festivities, but the former are more firmly anchored in the collective memory of Monegasques than the latter. They are an integral and exclusive part of the social, cultural and moral heritage.

Of these religious traditions, the one which they take most to heart is the story where reality is combined with imagination, that of Saint Dévote, their heavenly patron saint.

Once upon a time ... right at the beginning of the 4th century ... there was, on the Island of Corsica, then a Roman province, a cruel governor who persecuted Christians.

It was under these circumstances that Dévote, who had vowed her life to the service of God, was arrested, imprisoned and tortured. She died without denying her faith and pious hands in a boat leaving for Africa where she would find, they believed, Christian burial, placed her martyred corpse.

But in the very early hours of the crossing, a storm arose. And from the mouth of Saint Dévote a dove made its appearance. The storm then abated. The dove guided the boat right up to the coast of Monaco where it ran aground at the entrance to the little valley of the Gaumates ... on a bush bearing early blossoms.

The body of Dévote was piously received by the small Christian community, which lived in the neighborhood. It is on this day, the sixth of the calends of February - for us, 27th January of the year 312 of our era, that Saint Dévote took under her protection Monaco and its inhabitants.

A rustic oratory marked the place of her tomb. The faithful, residents and sailors passing through Monaco, went there in greater and greater numbers to venerate the relics of the Saint ... and the first miracles took place.

It was then that an evil idea took possession of the mind of an unscrupulous man who, in the dead of night, stole the relics of the Saint with the intention of taking them beyond the seas and selling their powers.

The intended sacrilege was cut short as Providence was watching. A group of fishermen witnessed the robbery and with a few strokes of their oars, made much more powerful by their anger, overtook the thief and his precious plunder.

Brought back on to the beach, the thief's boat was burnt as an expiatory sacrifice.

During the sieges, which Monaco underwent in the sixteenth century, the Italian Wars and the Wars of Religion, the relics of the Saint were exposed on the ramparts, inspiring the defenders and spreading terror among the besiegers.

That heroic age has now passed away. However, the cult of Saint Dévote still remains strong in the Principality.

Positive proof of this can be seen by attending the ceremonies and events which take place, as soon as night falls, around and inside the Church dedicated to St. Dévote which was constructed in the reign of Prince Charles III on the site of the original oratory.

Every year on this date, there is a torchlight procession, a religious ceremony and blessing followed by the setting on fire of a boat on a pyre decorated with olive, pine and laurel branches ; a picturesque symbolic copy of the boat which the Monégasques burnt in the past to efface all trace of an unpardonable crime !

The evening finishes with a firework display given over the waters of the harbor of Monaco, facing the outlet of the little valley of the Gaumates where the long association between Dévote and the Monégasques started.

The life of Saint Dévote was superbly sung by the Monégasque poet Louis Notari (1879-1961). His poem "The Legend of Saint Dévote" was the starting-point, now more than half a century ago, of a sort of rebirth of the Monégasque tongue. This dialect, with its full-flavoured intonations and its amazingly rich vocabulary, has since then been the subject of university theses both in France and elsewhere. It is included in the syllabus of the various schools of the Principality.

The origin of the religious traditions of Holy Week may probably be traced back to the time of the Crusades, when survivors of these distant expeditions to the Holy Land introduced the Christians of the West to the rites of their brothers of the East. Accounts of the first Good Friday Processions can be found in Monaco from the thirteenth century. This ceremony, however, did not take on its full significance until the foundation by Prince Honoré II in 1639 of the Venerable Brotherhood of the Black Penitents of Mercy.

Since that time, this Brotherhood, whose members are Monégasques of all ages and conditions, brought together in the spirit of serene piety and disinterested love of one's neighbours, each year organizes on the evening of Good Friday, the Procession of the Dead Christ, a travelling evocation complete with all the characters, real or imaginary, of the main Stations of the Cross.

After Saint Dévote, Saint Roman is the most popular and most venerated saint in the Principality.

The veneration by the Monégasques of this Roman legionary, who suffered martyrdom on 9th August 258 in the reign of the Emperor Valerian, goes back to the sixteenth century when a relic of Saint Roman was entrusted to the Terrazzani family who had a chapel built in which to lay it.

For several centuries, the Feast of Saint Roman took place at the hamlet of les Moulins ("the Mills") near to the old chapel.

Around 1880, the festivities moved to Monaco-Ville. Today, with the support of the Committee of the Feasts of Saint Roman, we still dance and enjoy cool drinks in the month of August under the foliage of the hundred-year-old trees of the Saint Martin gardens.

On the eve of Saint John's day, 23rd June, when the gardens of Monaco are ablaze under the setting sun, Monégasques mindful of the customs of their country assemble on the Palace Square.
There are folk groups, surrounding the Palladienne, Monaco's own folk group, a dynamic gathering of young people, wearing the costumes of the past, singing, dancing and playing the mandolin charmingly. Groups come from France, Italy and Spain to take part in the Monégasques' Saint John festival.
In the Palace chapel, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist himself, the Prince's Family attend a service which is also attended by several privileged people such as the Presidents of the Tradition Associations, together with their flags. At the end of this ceremony, two footmen of the Sovereign' s Household, each dressed in fine livery and carrying a burning torch, set alight a bonfire set up in the canter of the Square.
The people in the crowd applaud with all their hearts. Airs of bygone times accompany farandoles around the flames over which the boldest leap with a single bound. On 24th June, Saint John's Day, the Feast moves from Monaco-Ville to Monte Carlo. A procession forms up on the Place des Moulins (Mill Square) where the old olive presses used to operate. The folk groups form a guard of honour around "Little Saint John" and his lamb.
The procession, accompanied by music of its own making reaches the Church of Saint Charles in the parish of Monte Carlo. After a religious service, the procession returns to the Place des Moulins. A bonfire is set up, the Monégasque national anthem is played and then, the popular and religious feast combined, the great ball of Saint John commences in the open air and continues until late at night.

In Monaco, until the end of the last century, Christmas Eve was the occasion when all the members of a family would gather at their parents' home to perform, as a preliminary to the evening meal, the rite of the olive branch. Before sitting down, the youngest of the guests, or the oldest, soaked an olive branch in a glass of old wine. He approached the fireplace where a great fire of pine and laurel branches burned and with his little branch traced the sign of the Cross while pronouncing a few words on the virtues of the olive tree, a source of all kinds of good things. After this, everybody in turn wet his lips in the glass of wine serving as an aperitif before the gala dinner whose main dish was an enormous "brandamincium", a Monégasque dish of salt cod pounded up with garlic, oil and cream, surrounded by "cardu", cardoon in white sauce ; "barba-Giuan", literally "Uncle John", stuffed fritters and "fougasses" flat crunchy biscuits sprinkled with sugared aniseed colored red and white, flavored with several drops of rum and orange-flower water.

On the table covered with a splendid cloth lay a round loaf of bread "u pan de Natale" (the Christmas loaf) on which four walnuts formed a Cross surrounded by several olive twigs.

From this Christmas of olden times, there are still in existence, besides Midnight Mass in the Cathedral, "Barba-Giuan", "fougasses" and "u pan de Natale" to be found at some bakeries in the Principality.

The tradition of the carnival in Monaco probably goes back to the fifteenth century.

The carnival, the period between the Sunday of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, was the opportunity people to enjoy themselves before the long and austere period of Lent.
Young and less young disguised themselves as best they could in old clothes, formed processions, exchanged bawdy cat calls and, holding a large piece of cloth by the corners, threw up into the air an ungainly dummy figure stuffed with straw and rags.
Fights with projectiles, which were often far from harmless - rotten eggs, chickpeas, gravel, oranges and lemons - enlivened the passing of the procession that usually finished with the burning of the dummy amid general merriment. After this, weather permitting, there was dancing at the corner of the streets or in the fields to the shrill sound of makeshift instruments.
The tradition of the Carnival has been revived over the last thirty years or so with "Sciaratù". Organized by the Roca-Club, this comic procession with its floats, disguises, enormous dummy heads, fights with confetti and dancing in the open air, which rounds off the evening, takes place in the height of summer to the delight of tourists in search of local colour.

Faithful to a tradition, which goes back to 1857, the Monégasque National Holiday is now celebrated on 19th November, Saint Rainier's day.
Previously, the Festival of Saint Dévote was observed as the National Holiday.
A Thanksgiving Mass with a program of choice music, the conferring of honours and decorations, a gala evening at the Opera House, treats for children and elderly people and a grand firework display all contribute to make this day of gaiety the great Festival of the Monégasque people.
Numerous traditions, which, lapsed today but perhaps only temporarily forgotten, bore witness right up to the last century either to the religious spirit or joy of living of the Monégasques.

Very popular among country people: the peasants came in procession, often on the backs of donkeys, from the plain of the Condamine or its neighbouring hills, to have the seeds of their future crops blessed together with several handfuls of figs ; these latter had the power when drunk in an infusion of curing tonsillitis and seasonal colds.

With, from the first to the last of this month marking the height of Spring, dances ("farandoles") round a Maypole, decorated with flowers and red and white ribbons - the Monégasque colours - set up in the very centre of the Palace Square.

Organized on the first Sunday of Lent, which takes its name from the cooking pot which members of the crowd, their eyes blindfolded, tried to break at intervals with heavy blows of their sticks, (the Monégasque form of the French word" charivari" meaning "row or racket") which consisted of providing the most inharmonious serenade possible, continuing all night long, under the windows of newlyweds when they formed a far too disparate couple.

Diverse lodging possibilities (2.500 hotel rooms of which 1.700 are 4-star), the presence of efficient and organized tourism infrastructures (2 conference centres and numerous reception halls) and the fact that the hotels, conference centers, halls, ect. are all located with in a single area of the Principality make it an ideal destination for the organization of a conference or trade show.