Fornacalia

The Fornacalia was an Ancient Roman religious festival celebrated in honor of the goddess Fornax, a divine personification of the oven (fornax), and was related to the proper baking of bread.

==History== The Fornacalia may have been established by Numa Pompillius. Ovid wrote that "the oven was made a goddess, Fornax: the farmers, pleased with her, prayed she’d regulate the grain’s heat." It was held in early February on various dates in different curiae, which in the period of the Roman monarchy and the Roman Republic were the thirty wards of the city of Rome. It was proclaimed every year by the curio maximus, who was a priest who was the head of the curiae. He announced the different part which each curia (sing. of curiae) had to take in the celebration of the festival; "[n]ow the Curio Maximus, in a set form of words, declares the shifting date of the Fornacalia, the Feast of Ovens, and round the Forum hang many tablets, on which every ward displays its own sign."