Events year 2009

APRIL:
Florence
Scoppio del Carro: Easter, April 12
Each Easter they light the symbolic “nuovo fuoco”.
A cart in the form a dovecote is pulled into Piazza del Duomo by two oxen. During Easter mass the stones supply the spark and the cart is suddenly twisting and turning with light and noise supplied by fireworks. The success of the spectacular guarantees a good harvest and fortune for the city in the year ahead.

MAY:
Celle sul Rigo – San Casciano dei Bagni – Siena
Sagra dei pici: the last Sunday in May
Gastronomic event with music and games. Besides “pici”, a type of large, hand-rolled spaghetti served with a meat sauce and with “l’aglione”, a special spicy sauce, you can also sample other local products.

JUNE:
San Gimignano – Siena
Ferie delle Messi: The 3rd weekend in June
Harvest Holidays. These holidays date back to a propitiatory harvest festival which included songs, games, dances and combat between knights on horseback armed with clubs.
A market is prepared with stalls selling hand-crafted products. Shows are produced featuring ballad-singers, musicians and puppet shows. Cavaliers complete in archery contests. The festivities culminate with the Sunday Fair during which cavaliers representing the four district compete, after a procession through the streets of the village, in the “Joust of Clubs” for the conquest of the golden sword.

JULY:
Monteriggioni – Siena
In festa Monteriggioni di torri si corona: The 3rd weekend in July
In a Festival Monteriggioni is Crowned with Towers. The village undertakes to represent scenes from medieval life. Stalls and shops are arranged which are inspired by medieval crafts. Shows are presented with musicians, ballad-singers and puppet shows. Figurants in costume move through the streets of the village.

Siena
Palio di Siena: July 2
Siena’s Palio horse race. The Palio is dedicated to the Madonna of Provenzano.

Certaldo – Florence
Mercantia: The 3rd weekend in July
Born in 1988 by enterprise taken by the Commune of Certaldo, it develops every year in July, animating - for five nights on end - the streets and the squares of the Medieval Village, Certaldo Alto, with the magic of the "Teatro da Quattro Soldi". Jugglers, clowns, puppeteers, acrobats, fire-eaters and fakirs, magicians and musicians, with groups and artists coming from every part of Italy and abroad live together with craftsmen, who work lively, involving people into a show "without interruption".

AUGUST:
Montepulciano – Siena
Bravio delle Botti: The last Sunday in August
The representatives of the districts in which the town is divided compete in pushing a heavy barrel up the step slopes of the village. The winning district is awarded the “Bravio”, a banner painted by a local artist.

Siena
Palio di Siena: August 16
Siena’s Palio horse race. The Palio is dedicated to the Assumption of the Madonna.

SEPTEMBER:
Colle Val d’Elsa – Siena
Cristallo tra le Mura: The last fifteen days in September
Founded as a handcraft festival, for the past to years it has been exclusively dedicated to crystal.
Within the walls of the village, shops are reconstructed which display and sell crystal objects.

OCTOBER:
Montalcino – Siena
Sagra del Tordo: The last Sunday in October
Archers representing the four quarters in which the village is organised compete in hitting the outline of a wild boar. Before the contest a procession of figurants in costume moves through the streets of the village.