THE FLORENTINE CALCIO: GAME OF KICK
We may not approve of the manner in which Italy is living in her Past, and celebrating centenaries when she ought to be setting her face strenuously towards the Future; nevertheless, we must confess that the Florentine fêtes a year or two back presented one historical spectacle that was distinctly worth the trouble of reviving. We refer to the mediæval game known as Calcio, or Kick, which is interesting to English and American youths as bearing at least a superficial likeness to Football. At the time of the fêtes it was indeed spoken of as the Football of Florence; but it differs from Football in two ways that are eminently characteristic of Italian character: it is more complicated and more spectacular.
To begin with, there were twenty-seven actual players needed on each side, besides trumpeters, drummers, standard-bearers, referees, and a ball-thrower. Of the twenty-seven players, fifteen, divided into three equal companies, were placed face to face with the enemy in the front of the battle, and bore the brunt of the strife. They were called Runners (Corridori) or Fronts (Innanzi).
Behind the three battalions of Runners were placed in loose order, extending across the whole breadth of the field, five Spoilers (Sconciatori), so called because their business was to spoil the game for the Runners of the opposite side.
The Spoilers were supported by four Front Hitters (Datori innanzi); and these again by three Back Hitters (Datori indietro). These Datori may be spoken of as Half-backs and Backs.
The favourite Calcio ground in Florence was the square before the church and convent of Santa Croce. Here the great costume matches (Calcio a livrea) were held, as well as the ordinary games (not in costume) which enlivened the cold afternoons during Carnival time. A description of one of the costume matches at once makes clear the fundamental difference between Calcio and Football.
The field was 100 metres long by 50 broad, enclosed top and bottom by a palisade, on the left by a ditch, on the right by a low wall. Along the wall were erected stands for the more honourable spectators and for the umpires. At each end of the field was a tent round which stood the referees, standard-bearers, etc., of their respective sides, together with showily dressed halberdiers, who were also stationed at intervals round the field.
The spectators being assembled, the umpires and, perhaps, some foreign potentate or his ambassador, seated in the stand above the wall, the grand march in of the players commenced. It was a procession of picked men from the noblest Florentine families. For the Calcio was an aristocratic game. It was not to be played “by any kind of scum: not by artisans nor servants nor ignoble nor infamous men; but by honoured soldier men of noble birth, gentlemen, and princes.” The ages of the players ranged from eighteen to forty-five, and they were all well-built, athletic men. They wore light shoes, long hose, doublet and cap, and their costumes were of the most splendid material—velvet, silk, cloth of gold or silver—for were not the brightest eyes of the city to watch the game? Not only did each side have its own colours, but the players had also to be dressed in the same material.
The march was opened by the trumpeters and drummers. Then came the Runners, going in couples, and chequer fashion: a red, say, behind a white, and vice versâ. The Runners were followed by nine more drummers preceding the standard-bearers, each dressed in the colours and bearing the flag of his side. Finally appeared the Spoilers, the Half-Backs bearing the ball, and the Backs.
After making the round of the field the procession, at the sound of a single trumpet-blast, split up into its component parts. Trumpeters, drummers, referees, standard-bearers, placed themselves at the tents of their respective sides; the Runners divided up into their companies of five and faced each other in the centre of the field; the Spoilers placed themselves at a distance of 13½ metres behind the Runners and 9 metres from each other; the Half-backs 10½ metres behind the Spoilers and 12 metres from each other; the Backs again 10½ metres in the rear of the Half-backs and 17½ metres from each other.
A second trumpet blast, and the serving-men retired from the field; a third, and the game began.
The Ball-bearer (Pallaio), in a parti-coloured dress formed of the colours of both sides, threw the ball with great force against a marble sign let into the middle of the wall on the right-hand side of the field. It rebounded between the two ranks of the Runners, who immediately rushed towards it, acting, however, not independently, but in their companies.
The company of Runners which had possessed itself of the ball began, of course, to work it with their feet towards the opposite goal. Now came the turn of the Spoilers, of whom the two nearest left their stations and ran obliquely at the advancing Runners, hustling them and endeavouring to get the ball from them and pass it to their own Runners, who were hovering near.
The Runners and the Spoilers worked the ball forward with their feet; the Hitters (Half-backs and Backs) were allowed, nay, as their name implies encouraged, to use their hands.
If the Runners succeeded in taking the ball past the Spoilers, they had to face the onset of two Half-backs, who, if they got the ball, would probably pitch it clear over the heads of the players to the Half-back on the opposite side. This was considered very diverting play, and was much appreciated by the onlookers.
Having pierced the lines of the Spoilers and Half-backs, the Runners found themselves opposed by one of the Backs. The Backs were the strongest men on the field, as, being placed so far apart, they were obliged to act separately.
The ball was generally knocked, not kicked, over the goal. When this happened the two sides changed places on the field; the winning side marching to its new position with flag unfurled and waving, the losers with furled flag and lowered staff.
Such is a diagram—a mere diagram, though a correct one—of the Florentine Calcio. Its connection with Football evidently lies, to adapt an expression from the vocabulary of folk-lore, in the fundamental formula: to send a ball through a goal without the aid of an instrument. But this formula developed differently in England and in Florence. The traditions of the Florentines were military. Their youths were trained to war from boyhood upward: they were accustomed to act in bands. Has anyone ever noticed the truly military spirit in which Dante continually combines the souls into bands, schiere, moving and acting in unison? The remembrance of the disposition of the Roman army, too, with its close and extended ranks, still lingered amongst them. Add to this that they were a thoroughly artistic people, devoted to spectacular effects and cunning in the planning of them, and we at once perceive the cause of the radical difference between this most interesting game of ancient Florence and the English Football.
Those were the times when Florentines penetrated either as merchants or exiles, and generally as both combined, into all parts of the Peninsula and of Europe; and they took their games with them. Matteo Strozzi’s sons, one of whom was Filippo, the famous founder of the great Strozzi Palace, more than once beg their mother to put balls in with linen, etc., which she constantly despatched from Florence to her exiled family, these balls being probably for the most energetic game of Pallone, still played throughout Tuscany.
They took the Calcio with them too, just as the English take their football, cricket or tennis. Thus Tommaso Rinuccini, living at Lyons, writes in his memoirs that: “When Henry III., King of Poland, after the death of Charles IX. his brother, left Poland for France in 1575 to take possession of the kingdom, he passed through Lyons in France. And the Florentines living in that city played before him a Calcio, in which all the Florentine nobles took part, as it was their custom to do. And they sent Pierantonio Bandini and Pierfrancesco Rinuccini, two extremely handsome gentlemen and tall, both Florentines (who were the standard-bearers in the Calcio), to invite his Majesty, in the name of their native city, to be present at the celebration. King Henry accepted the invitation and was a spectator of the game. When he spoke to them before they left his presence he asked whether all Florentines were as tall and handsome as they.”
It would be, indeed, well for the physical development of modern Florentines should the Calcio enter again into the ordinary life of the youth of the city.
ELBA