Easter Cart Tradition in Florence
The Italian City of Florence Holds a Historic Easter Festival
For centuries, the city of Florence in Italy has been celebrating the Easter holiday with the traditional Scoppio del Carro festival, dating back from Medieval times.
Scoppio del Carro Festival
Around 9am on Easter morning, a historic pageant of musicians, flag-throwers and dignitaries in colourful Renaissance costume escort a tall wooden cart along the streets of Florence to the Cathedral square (Piazza del Duomo) and place it between the main door and the Baptistery (Battistero di San Giovanni), where the 'Explosion of the Cart' (Scoppio del Carro) festival is held.
The cart, teasingly nicknamed Brindellone - meaning tall and wobbly in Florentine dialect - is laden with fireworks and pulled by two pairs of huge white oxen of the local Chianina breed.
Meanwhile, another parade moves from the ancient church of Santi Apostoli by the Arno, solemnly carrying a fire kindled with the flints from the Holy Sepulchre which have been kept here since 1785.
At 11am, during the celebration of Easter mass in the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, all the bells peal in unisone and the bishop uses the holy fire to ignite a dove-shaped rocket, which shoots along a steel wire from the high altar through the central nave of the cathedral and to the Brindellone outside, starting a whirlpool of fireworks, bangers and colourful Catherine-wheels.
Popular belief has it that if the explosion goes smoothly and the dove makes it safely back to the altar, the year’s harvest will be good and plentiful.
Easter Cart Festival: Origins and History
The festival dates back to 1099, when the Crusaders finally conquered the city of Jerusalem after a long siege. The first soldier to climb the walls was Pazzino de' Pazzi, a brave young Florentine. His reward were three flints of stone from the Holy Sepulchre, which he proudly took back to Florence.
After being kept in the family palace for a few years, Pazzino's precious relics were entrusted to a nearby church and were used each year on Holy Saturday to lit a fire that was first brought to the cathedral for blessing, and then carried in solemn procession throughout the city. Over the decades, the cart used for the procession became increasingly large and elaborate.
Then, in 1478, some Pazzis conjured against the reigning Medicis and the family was disgraced and exiled. As a result, the fire cart tradition was suppressed, but soon revived by popular demand and entrusted to the powerful Calimala (wool weavers) guild.
When the Pazzi family was readmitted to the city a few years later, they provided an even more monumental and solid cart, which is basically the one still in use today, while fireworks were first introduced in the 16th century as a spectacular substitute for the door-to-door distribution of the holy fire.
Further Reading
Visiting Florence with children? Check out this review of a free Disney guidebook to the Renaissance city!
