Italy hosts a festival where people fight with oranges!
You eat oranges but do you fight with them? Imagine you are on a holiday in Italy and you see thousands of people flocking to the streets of a quiet town, with oranges and throwing them at one another. Welcome to the Battle of the Oranges, one of the oldest traditions in Italy, observed as part of its Ivrea Carnival, held in the northern city of Ivrea. It is generally held in the month of February and sometimes in March too. This year, the three-day festival of Battle of the Oranges is being held from 19th-21st February.
History of the Battle of Oranges
The event is being hosted since 1808. The origins of this food fight are a little murky but it seems to have been associated with a tyrant ruler. The local legend says that in the 1100s, Ivrea was ruled by an evil tyrannical duke, Raneri de Biandrate, who tried to attack a young miller’s daughter on her wedding night. During the attack, she beheaded him and started a revolution. Following her lead, the people of the town stormed the palace and burned it to the ground. It is believed that a few decades later, another tyrant, the Marquis Guglielmo of Monferrato, had the same fate. Over the years, as the legend was shared with younger generations, the town’s people started commemorating the liberty with food fights. However, it was only after World War II that the celebrations took on the entertaining format that is practised today.
Battle of the Oranges at a glance
This festival starts from Sunday to Shrove Tuesday during the Carnival of Ivrea. Shrove Tuesday is the day preceding Lent, a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in Christianity.
So what are the primary events during these three days? On Sunday, dishes of ‘fagioli grassi’ (made with a type of bean) are distributed and eaten together followed by the Battle of the Oranges which begins in the afternoon continuing on Monday. On Shrove Tuesday, the last day of the Carnival, the final round of the battle takes place. On the evening of Shrove Tuesday, a mock funeral is also held for the ‘fallen’ ones of the battle. Then, on the next morning, the Ivrea people distribute polenta (an Italian dish) and cod dishes marking the end of the festival.
The orange fight
And how exactly do they do the orange fight? The town is split into two factions – one that represents the Ivrean people and the other, the emperor’s forces. The ones representing the people, divided into nine teams (representing different neighbourhoods of the town), parade the town on foot while throwing oranges at the tyrant’s forces who are also playing and fighting from their horse-drawn carriages.
The nine teams have a designated area for their throwers (wearing tunics and trousers in their team’s colours). The oldest of these teams ‘Aranceri Asso di Picche’ was founded in 1947. Other teams are Aranceri della Morte, Aranceri Tuchini del Borghetto, Aranceri degli Scacchi, Aranceri Scorpioni d’Arduino, Aranceri Diavoli, Aranceri Mercenari, Aranceri Pantera Nera and the Aranceri Credendari. There are 51 orange-throwing carriages alternating and heading into the town squares.
But why oranges?
There are quite a few theories behind the choice of oranges. One school of thought suggests that the orange represents the tyrant’s head, with its pulp representing his blood. But it wasn’t always oranges that were used. It is believed that the people also used beans at one point of time.