THE ORANGE BATTLE by caldarrosta
Are you up for something amazing?This is your chance, this incredible Carnival in Ivrea where people throw oranges at each others. Read carefully the site (in english) and be amazed from the pictures.
Before going there some good advises, don't dress smart (believe me, u are going to regret it especially careful with shoes and trousers). Wear something RED if you don't like somebody to throw oranges at you. Check on the site the dates, generally at the end of February.
The story of the carnival...
The Carnival of Ivrea is the only Carnival in the world which has a real plot and tells a story in which the protagonists are not mask-characters, but ideal figures, the symbols of anarchic values and actors of ancient events. Even if the original core of the legend has been gradually adapted over the years to the requirements of the various periods, there remain two main trends of events which make up the plot. The first goes back to the Middle Ages, when Federico Barbarossa installed the tyrant Raineri di Biandrate as lord of the town. For a long time the violence and abuse of power exasperated the people, who in 1194 rose up and destroyed the tyrant's castle, the symbol of oppression. The same fate was reserved to another despot in 1266, the Marquis Gugliemo of Monferrato.
In popular tradition, Raineri and Guglielmo become a single tyrant, who in-keeping with the custom of the time, claimed the right to practice "jus primae noctis",in other words to spend the wedding night with the brides. Until Violetta, the beautiful daughter of a miller, rebelled against the lord's will, cut off his head with a dagger and showed it to the people gathered beneath the castle walls. Continue on the site...