Tuscan Tournaments. The Saracen Joust, the Crossbow Palio and the Game of the Bridge | Florence
Exhibitions
Starting with the Saracen jousting, a popular event celebrated in the city of Arezzo, the exhibition aims to document war games using prints and drawings from various periods in the Uffizi Gallery, especially the numerous examples of helmets, weapons and armour from the famous collection of the Stibbert Museum. These knightly tournaments became popular in the Middle Ages and continued into the Renaissance, including the Crossbow Palio, which required contestants to have skills in precision, and the ancient Game of the Bridge, a contest of strength to conquer the Ponte Vecchio on foot.
Visitors will see the most iconic piece in the exhibition, a 16th-century Buratto or Saracen quintain on loan from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello. Probably a celebration to mark the marriage of Francesco I and Bianca Cappero in 1579, the changes over the centuries have transformed it from a Saracen nobleman to the European warrior we see today. The exhibition emblem is another prestigious work of art, Stefano Della Bella’s Knight in Armour, made for the procession and loaned by the Uffizi Gallery. The sumptuous, ornate costumes and robes evoke the sheer splendor of participating in these spectacular events designed to celebrate the great and the good. In another painting loaned from the CR Florence Foundation, Stefano Della Bella depicts a night procession in the Boboli Gardens in 1637. Arms and armour are loaned by Florence’s Museo Stibbert, which has one of the richest collections of material on the ancient game of bridge in Pisa. Stibbert also loaned a fine set of 17th-century crossbows richly inlaid with hunting scenes, made by a workshop in southern Germany. And the collection of the Ivan Bruschi Foundation lends an interesting letter of challenge from “the unconquered, most glorious and ever-victorious King of the Indies, Brato”, issued to announce the version of the Saracen tournament that was held on August 26, 1674 in honor of Cardinal Corsini, Bishop of Arezzo.