FLORENCE, ITALY – A special game with the old glories of the Florence’s Historic Football on the eve of Pitti Uomo in June 2015: it is the brand new event told by Stefano Ricci, president of the Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana (CFMI), in the opening cerimony of #Pitti87, yesterday (January 13, 2015) in Florence, Italy.
“For the next Pitti in June – Stefano Ricci said – we thought enhance and present our costumes of the Renaissance, returning to the moment in which our city has had a great siege and Florentines organized a special game, so the besiegers could hear shouts of joy and drums. That event was the first game of Calcio in Costume, the Florence’s Historic Football. There will be 500 crowd artists around the streets in the evening before Pitti, before a special game of Calcio in Costume”.
Florence’s historic football is an early form of football that originated in 16th century Italy. Once widely played, the sport is thought to have originated in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. The game may have started as a revival of the Roman sport of harpastum.
Matches last 50 minutes and are played on a field covered in sand, twice as long as it is wide. Each team has 27 players with no substitutions. The teams are made up of four Datori indietro (goalkeepers), 3 Datori innanzi (fullbacks), 5 Sconciatori (halfbacks), 15 Innanzi o Corridori (forwards). The Captain and Standard Bearer’s tent sits at the center of the goal net. They do not actively participate in the game, but can organize their teams and sometimes act as referees, mainly to calm down their players or to stop fights.
The modern version of calcio allows tactics such as head-butting, punching, elbowing, and choking but sucker punches and kicks to the head are banned. It is also prohibited from more than one player to attack an opponent. Any violation leads to being thrown out of the game.
The players try by any means necessary to get the ball into the opponents’ goal also called caccia. The teams change sides with every caccia scored. It’s important to shoot with precision, because every time a player misses the opposing team is awarded with half a caccia. For the first time a fashion event, as Pitti, will be experienced with the tradition of the Florence’s Historic Football.