When it’s all over, the ground in Ivrea is a carpet of crushed oranges. Your shoes dip into it, the juices and pulp rolling up to the heels of your boots.
The whole city smells of citrus. The perfume spreads through the streets, the squares, the doorways. It mixes with the cool air.
There is a kind of joyful calm in the atmosphere. People are walking around in period dress, half-wet and half-covered with fruit. They’ve just been throwing oranges at each other for more than three hours. All are exhausted, some with bruises. Still, happy. You can see them smiling: once again, they have had the chance to relive old traditions closely linked to their identity.
This is what it feels like to be part of the Ivrea carnival, one of the oldest in Italy and one whose fame has spread way beyond the locale, way beyond Italy even.
Ivrea is a small town in the Canavese area of Piedmont, a region in Italy’s north-west. It has a population of more than 22,000, but for a few weeks in the early part of the year that swells by another 80,000-100,000 people.
The carnival takes place over several weeks – it starts in January – and follows a complex protocol wrapped in historical significance. Most important is the commemoration of a Middle Ages people’s revolt against a local baron who was starving them.
According to the legend, the revolt began with Violetta, the miller’s daughter. She liberated the people of Ivrea by rebelling against the baron himself, who was keen to impose the ius primae noctis: a kind of law (the historical accuracy of which is uncertain) that allowed lords to sleep with the wives of their subjects.
Each year now, the main character of the carnival is the so-called Mugnaia (female for miller), played every year by a different young married woman, since Violetta was both young and married.
But it is the Battle of the Oranges that really draws the crowds. This takes place over three days – this year it is from March 2-4 – and is supposed to symbolise rebellion against oppressive power.
Oranges were apparently once thrown from balconies by the rich as a joke, until the poor picked them up and started using them as improvised weapons.
Today, the battle goes like this: the people gather in the main squares of Ivrea, with lots of citrus fruit – not suitable for the market and destined for the pulp mill anyway. Then they wait for some horse-drawn carts, carrying brave souls who represent tyranny.
When the carts arrive in the squares, the battle begins. The people on foot throw oranges without protection, while the others wear masks and something to protect their torso.
“We don’t have a technique for throwing oranges, we just do it,” says Stefano Ampollini, head of the Aranceri on Foot association (aranceri can be translated as “those who throw oranges”).
“When you are in a one-on-one fight, right under the cart, you have to be smart enough to lower and raise your head to find the right rhythm to avoid the fruit. Then try to throw it when your opponent is looking for another orange in his basket. It’s a split second.”
Ampollini explains that the division between “aranceri on foot” and “aranceri on carts” is basically determined by family tradition. “But immediately after the fight we applaud our rivals and we shake hands,” he says. “Sometimes, when the floats run out of oranges, the ones on foot give them some, in order to keep on ‘fighting’.
“I remember once, right after the battle, a girl was lifted off the ground so that she could kiss a guy on the cart: they were a couple, but belonged to opposite sides.”
Around 10,000 aranceri now take part in the battle, far more than in earlier years.
Ampollini says: “Most of them are from Ivrea, but some come from other regions. Sometimes from abroad. I know a man from Japan: he travels from the other side of the world every year just to participate.” The most fascinating thing about the carnival, he adds, “is the fact that everything is uprooted for a while. The typical hierarchies of society are completely reset. We wait for it all year.”
Andrea Moretto thinks the same. He’s one of the aranceri on carts: “I know we might look like crazy people who just want to get bruised once a year. But for us, the carnival is an incredible way of liberating ourselves. All your problems, in every area of your life, just disappear for a few days. When the fight starts, we start to live in a bubble that bursts when the carnival ends.”
Moretto’s family owns a float called Gli Arcieri del Re (The Archers of the King) and he has been taking part in the Battle of the Oranges since he was a child.
“Every time I see the square full of people ready to throw oranges at me, I can’t help but think ‘why am I here?’. But then everything changes,” he says.
He can still remember the first time he threw: “I was 14, maybe. I was in the cart with my family. My father was throwing and suddenly he said to me: ‘You should try it’, like a kind of generational passing on.”
Moretto is now well known in the town because he and his relatives make all of the masks worn by the aranceri on carts.
It’s not his main job, he explains, he does it in his spare time (at night and at weekends). “Every year we make almost 30 masks, and we work 30-35 hours on each one in our laboratory. For us, the carnival never really ends.”
Throughout the years, the battle has changed a lot. The number of participants has increased, so it’s much more tiring for those on floats. “Everything is much more regulated. For example, we do a census of all the aranceri,” says Simone Lavezzo, president of the Aranceri on Carts association.
With record crowds expected this year, does Lavezzo think outsiders should still be welcomed? “I think people should visit Ivrea twice,” he says. “Once during the carnival and once at other times. They would find two completely different places.”
Elisa Cornegliani is a journalist based in Milan
