The modern visitor to Florence can easily enjoy the city as it stands today without having to think of the more warlike aspects of its history. The Battle of Montaperti in 1260, when Florence was defeated and nearly destroyed by the other Tuscan cities, the endless faction-fighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the siege of 1530 that made the Medicis the rulers of Tuscany all seem very remote as you stroll about the Uffizi under the placid gaze of Renaissance saints, and enjoy your bistecca alla fiorentina in a quiet trattoria. But Florence has preserved an interesting reminder of its bellicose past, the “calcio storico fiorentino – historical Florentine soccer”, a no-holds-barred soccer game with very few rules and a lot of violence, which forms part of the annual celebrations of the city’s patron saint, John the Baptist.
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| A painting of a Florentine soccer match being held in front of the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella in 1561. |
The origins of the game are uncertain. Attempts have been made to connect it to a similar game called “harpastrum” played by the Romans, but, as the article about it on Italian Wikipedia rightly notes, there is no mention of it among the constant references to Florence and its culture in any of Dante’s writings, and the first attestation of it dates to the later 15th century. The local tradition brags especially that it was played during the aforementioned siege of 1530, as the city’s way of showing its lack of concern for the enemies at the gate. (Florence surrendered to the besieging armies about six months later.) After falling out of use for about two centuries, it was revived in 1930 for the 400th anniversary of the siege, and has been kept up ever since, with interruptions for the Second World War, and some... other things that happened more recently...
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| Image from Wikimedia Commons by Lorenzo Noccioli, CC BY-SA 3.0. This picture was taken in 2008, the year I attended the finale. (Same attribution for the photo below.) |
In 2008, I attended the finale, which is held on St John’s feast day, with some friends who were studying in Florence. It begins with a troop of “sbandierai – flag-tossers”, who perform a really impressive display of the medieval art (or game) of waving around huge but very light flags, then throwing them up into the air and catching them again, a sort of pre-gunpowder version of fireworks. This is followed by a very long procession onto the sand-covered playing field in Piazza Santa Croce, with costumed personages representing every aspect of medieval and renaissance life, from government officials to military corps. The procession is slow and dignified, and gives no hint of the mayhem that ensues when the actual game begins.
It also traditionally included, inexplicably to the uninitiated, a huge white horned cow or bull calf of a highly prized breed called “chianina”, wearing a decorated blanket, and looking very out of place amid drummers, standard bearers and the strutting horses of the cavalry officers. (This was done when I saw the game in 2008, but the custom has since been discontinued.) After the procession has filled the enormous field, a signal is given, everyone rushes off the field in no particular order (very Italian), and the “game” begins without further ado.
I put the word “game” in quotes because the game aspect of calcio storico is frequently not so evident; in fact, it could more accurately be described as a huge street brawl, in which a ball is occasionally brought into play. When I saw it, within 20 seconds of the starting gun, two sets of players from the opposing teams had begun boxing each other. Wrestling is a big part of calcio storico, the idea being that an opponent grappled to a standstill is one less guy scoring for the enemy, although the grappler is of course also immobilized by having to hold him down.
A video of this year’s calcio storico finale, played earlier today, complete with the procession described above. N.B. YouTube flags this for violent content, and requires one to sign in and confirm one’s age.
About half of the players start with their shirts off, which seemed a very counter-intuitive choice, given that the “no-holds-barred” aspect of calcio storico would seem to demand some kind of protective clothing. In point of fact, it is perfectly permissible to rip your opponents’ clothes off, and within five minutes the playing field was littered with the remains of ripped shirts. It is also, apparently, legal to “pants” people, so all the players wear very thick and tight belts, to obviate such a compromising eventuality. One of the oddest aspects of the game is the little truces that take place among the players as the fighting, running and summer sun wear them down. Two players from opposite sides grab each other’s belts and stand still; since they are both too tired to run or fight any more, they keep an eye on each other by holding the belts, and let the less tired players deal with the ball.
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| An engraving which shows the set-up of the game in Piazza Santa Croce in 1688, which is pretty similar, mutatis mutandis, to the modern one. (Note the little tents on either end of the playing field.) |
Ah yes, the ball. It is easy to forget that there is a ball as you watch the 40+ players punch, kick, tackle and grapple with each other, but there is actually a point to it all. The waist-high barrier that defines the rectangular playing field has in the middle of each short side a very narrow medieval-looking tent; when my friends and I came into the stadium, we assumed this was the goal, and remarked how difficult it must be to score with such a narrow goal. In reality, the entire short side of the playing field is the goal, which means that if a player from the other side gets close to it, he is fairly likely to score. The two little tents are for the flagbearers of the two sides to hide out while the battle rages; each time a goal is scored they change sides, running though the chaos to take possession of the other tent. The Confraternity of Mercy, a famous free ambulance corps whose headquarters are right next to the Duomo, is also present in force. To some degree they tend the wounded, but most of the wounded just keep playing (and bleeding); the Confraternity mostly just pour water on the players as they wrestle in the sand, a very useful service that prevents the calcio storico equivalent of road rash.
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| “Oh, right... the ball...” |
After 50 minutes of this craziness, the game abruptly came to an end with a signal from a gun, and an announcement that the Santa Maria Novella quarter’s team had beaten the homefield team of Santa Croce by 9 to 4½. My friends and I had seats on Santa Croce’s side of the stadium; wise heads apparently decided long ago that it was best to keep the supporters of the various teams apart from each other, lest the activities on the field spill over into the stands. (The tournament has been suspended or even annulled more than a few times due to acts of violence and vandalism.) While Santa Maria Novella’s team was visibly younger and tougher, it would be hard to imagine more enthusiastic fans than Santa Croce’s, who gave everybody on their side a free blue t-shirt, and kept up a nearly continuous chant of “Picchi’azzurro! Picchi’azzurro! – hit them, blue! hit them, blue!”
I wanted to share in their disappointment [note], but a player from their side had already been carried away on a stretcher, and several others were walking around with icepacks and dazed expressions on their faces. In the meantime, the procession reassembled on the field, and in a slow and wholly dignified way marched off the field in the order in which it came. And we learned from the announcer what the winning side’s prize was – they got the cow. I was unable to find out whether or how soon it would become a large number of steaks, which are justifiably one of the most famous things about Florentine cuisine, and can also be used for healing black eyes.
[note] Santa Croce are the Yankees of the game, with 21 victories since the last major rule change in 1978. This year, however, Santa Maria Novella scored a crushing 18-4 victory over the perennial losers San Giovanni, who have won only six times since 1930, mostly recently 29 years ago, in 1996.
