Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Festive Florence
Florence has a number of annual festivals and events, some focused on the
modern business of textiles and fashion. But the more entertaining ones
have history as their theme.
The games of the
Calcio Storico
are held in connection with the cele-
brations related to St. John the Baptist, Florence's patron saint, on his
feast day of June 24.
After parading through town in 16th-century costumes, teams from
each of Florence's four city quarters assemble in a dirt-filled Piazza
Signoria and/or Santa Croce. They then play a set of games said to have
originated during a siege of Florence in 1530. If the Renaissance soldiers
were as brutal as their modern descendants, the siege was probably bro-
ken quickly.
The games are a combination of rugby and soccer, as well as general
mayhem, with teams—consisting of 26 people—beating the daylights out
of each other while trying to advance from one end of the square to the
other. Qualifying matches are played in the 2 weeks prior to the 24th, with
the final on feast day. The winning team, assuming they have any teeth
left, enjoy a roasted calf as their prize, and then they watch that night's
fireworks with the rest of Florence. Tickets can be hard to come by for the
bleachers in the squares, but the processions through town during the
weeks approaching the finals are free.
Scoppio del Caro
is Florence's Easter festival, in which the descent of
the Holy Spirit to earth is celebrated by blowing up a cart filled with fire-
works. This creative interpretation of heaven meeting earth is said to have
begun with a burning wagon pulled around town by returning crusaders,
to bring the flame of Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday. The modern buggy
is hauled by six nervous bulls from Porta a Prato to the Duomo. In the
Piazza, a mechanical dove on a wire descends from up high to set the
wagon (minus the relieved oxen) ablaze for a resulting explosion of holy
spirits.
Moving to the secular, Florence's notable multimonth music festival is
the
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
(www.maggiofiorentino.com). It features
opera, dance theater, and orchestra performances at venues across town,
including the Teatro Comunale, Teatro Verdi, the Palazzo dei Congressi, and
several outdoor performances. The season usually runs from May to early
June. Tickets begin at
€
10 for the cheap seats to
€
100 or more for the
best seats at the marquee events. A semi-related opera season runs from
September through January under the auspices of the same organization.
