Click here for the original article by Miti Vigliero

How the Ruzzola, or Tumbling, Came to be the Official Form of Entertainment at Carnival in Pontelandolfo.

Once upon a time in the Middle Ages, the wealthy Baron of Pontelandolfo had a  passion for gambling and would find any pretext for a good game as long as it was loaded with substantial stakes.

On the last Sunday of Carnival he was having a late-night card game with his farmhand Pasquale: it was a tense competition with victory often changing sides. In the end, dawn saw Pasquale the winner of two farms and pasture hills.

Taking no notice of the change of ownership, the Baron’s cows continued grazing happily on what was now Pasquale’s land.  Pasquale complained to the Baron about the trespassing, “I think, since I’m feeding your cows, I should be entitled to a share of the cheese from their milk!”

“You wish!” the Baron retorted, “They are grazing on grass that was grown before you won the land, therefore it’s still my grass.”

Now the townfolk of Pontelandolfo could look forward to a good, hot blooded battle between the two factions.  To add insult to injury the lord had a big wheel of cheese hung on Pasquale’s window. The farmer, furious but clever, and not wanting to stir up turmoil, challenged his opponent by saying, “What began as a game should be resolved with one: I shall wait for you tomorrow in the square!”

The following morning, surrounded by a shouting crowd, the two men started what was to be a decisive cheese-tumbling tournament.  According to the legend the game never ended and it is said that their ghosts appear in the nights of Carnival, still playing!

The Origins of the Game

There are clues to possibly very ancient origins of the Ruzzola: an Etruscan fresco in Tarquinia’s Tomb of the Olympiad, shows an athlete in the act of swinging a “disc” that looks much like a cheese.
Even Galileo took an interest in the game: in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems there is a quotation from Aristotle about the rotating motion and speed of ruzzole.

The Game as it is Played Today

Since 1861 the players gather and start the course of some 700 metres beginning at the main square, to Palazzo San Rocco and back, throwing their wheels of cheese.
These can weigh from 6 to 35 kilos and are swung using a rope called a zagaglia, which wrapped  around the perimeter of the cheese and the player’s wrist.  The team that uses the least throws, or cùlp wins.

Although today the game is properly organized in a Federation, its peasant origins make it popular in many regions of Italy; often the cheese is replaced by a wooden disc, which is cheaper and lighter.

©Mitì Vigliero

On the day of my visit to the sanctuary of S. Lucia in Sassinoro, I had an experience so glorious in its absurdity that it had to be documented and shared.

While admiring the inside of the church of S. Lucia in Sassinoro, my host Giovanna pointed out the last-minute preparations being made for a wedding that was to take place shortly: the bride and groom’s seats and pew had been padded with white satin drapery; the central aisle carpeted with a white runner and strewn carefully with orange rose petals.  Bouquets of yellow flowers decorated the pews on either side of the carpet, creating a strong visual perspective towards the magnificent, suspended cross with its incredible, rocky backdrop.

As we walked out into the dappled sunlight I began to say my goodbyes, but my eyes were drawn to a strange apparition on the far side of the courtyard, standing directly opposite a white marble statue of Padre Pio.  Like the glimmering image of St. Michael in the dark grotto of 1600, a young man stood, emanating a blinding light.  I had to blinked twice to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me.

He was olive-skinned and decked from head to toe in shades of cream and white.  A diamond-studded clasp closed the lapels of a jacket made out of what seemed to be upholstery fabric; a smaller pin glinted at his throat in place of a tie.  While the unhemmed pants billowed out over his cream-coloured boots, a jauntily-held white cane brought my gaze back to ruffled shirt-cuffs peaking out from the jacket sleeves.  The whole thing was topped off by a top hat studded with sequins.

Could this be St. Barnum or Bailey, I wondered, or was it a character out of a Savoyard production of Gilbert & Sullivan? The total effect was of a ring-leader at a circus and I watched, tranfixed, to see whether he would pull a rabbit out of his hat.

“Oh my God” I gasped, “It’s the groom!”

Two considertions broke into my mind.  What kind of person could have suggested this bizarre outfit and had the young man had to pay for it?

At that moment the bride’s entourage pulled up at the the gate below, cars piling up behind the  10-meter limousine which huffed to a halt at the bottom of the stairs.  Out spilled a cresting wave of white tulle.

St. Lucia is the patron saint of the blind and this girl must have been a long-standing member of the congregation because the lenses of her glasses were thick as bottle-bottoms. Her father - also dressed in white, but with an interesting shade of purple shirt and tie – helped her out of the car and proudly led her up the stairs.  Not to be outdone, her mother wore a red strapless gown while her aunt videoed the procession from behind in a tight-fitting black dress with a striking cleavage.  Someone at the top of the steps shouted down to the bride as she bravely navigated the stairs that she was lifting her dress too high for decency…

The riotous assembly regrouped in the sunlit churchyard, as the four-year-old bridesmaid augustly took her place behind the couple and holding the end of veil in her tiny hands.

The statue of Padre Pio, unperturbed by the garish show, calmly blessed everyone as they entered into the shadows of the church.

When asked, “Which archaeological site should I visit, Pompeii or Herculaneum?” I will inevitably answer, “Go to Oplontis!”

The patrician villa excavated under the modern town of Torre Annunziata, belonged to the Emperor Nero, famous for his appreciation of music and the arts, but more so for his cruelty. The villa was home to his beautiful and devious wife Poppea until she died after her husband kicked her in the stomach when she was heavily pregnant. (She should have been more careful; Nero had ordered the murder of his mother Agrippina as well…)

While it is hard to imagine much domestic bliss within these walls, the villa itself is extraordinary to behold. It contains some of the finest and best preserved wall paintings to have survived from early Imperial times. Visiting Oplontis is like taking a voyeuristic tour into the lives of the imperially rich and famous.  It is amazing how the aura of power and wealth is still palpable in the spacious hallways, frescoed walls and shaded garden with its vast swimming pool. It makes you want to walk on tiptoe or talk in a whisper; as if at any moment you might find yourself in the presence of the emperor, lounging in the calidarium or strolling along its cloistered porticos.

The complex was swallowed in ash during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.  Fortunately, the roof of the building survived, preserving the interior for posterity.  Even the doors are visible, poignantly cast in the solidified ashes.

While on a heritage tour with an Italo-American family who had come to meet their Italian relatives, we spent some time with their family near the tiny hilltop village of S. Giorgio la Molara in the province of Benevento.

This is a vast farming region of rolling hills and an immense checker-board effect is created by the colors of the crops: predominant are the powder blue of the sky, the rich browns of the tilled fields and the grey-greens of olive, tobacco and corn, with golden necklaces of tabacco neatly hanging to dry on wooden racks.

At first glance it’s an idyllic scene, with sheep grazing in the meadows, far from the drama of Naples or the exhaltation of the Amalfi Coast.  But it’s a stark, spartan place, where in the early part of the last century lives were torn apart by back-breaking labor, famine and emigration and where even today familes live isolated lives highlighted only by births, baptisms, weddings and funerals.

As we travelled through the countryside, huge turbines harvested the Autumn winds and I reflected that nothing here goes to waste.  And then I was struck by how this stark landscape, viewed from the air, might seem like some titanic game of chess, with the huge windmills posing as pawns on an awesome and endless chessboard.

I wound my way up the narrow road towards the tiny, secluded sanctuary of S. Lucia in Sassinoro. I was on my way to meet Giovanna, a volunteer in the shrine’s wee gift shop.  She and her husband Giorgio were part of the family I was researching for a heritage tour.

Like many holy places, the legend surrounding S. Lucia in Sassinoro began in the spring of 1600 as a shepherd’s tale.  A number of sheep had been mysteriously disappearing and just as mysteriously reappearing again after a few minutes, so the shepherds decided to follow the flock as they grazed.  They discovered that the animals were going in and out of a split in the rocky face of the mountain.  They squeezed through the narrow crack and made their way into the hillside until they reached a grotto where they were suddenly blinded by the appearance of a beautiful woman and a handsome young man bathed in shimmering light.

They ran home to tell of their miraculous encounter and returned with the town priest to verify the account.  In the grotto they found a statue of S. Lucia and S. Michele!  The town fathers decided to erect a place of worship on the spot and construction of the sanctuary began in 1622 and was completed in 1643.

Today this quaint little church nestles quietly into the mountain above the village of Sassinoro. But once inside, the feeling becomes one of awe as the apse is dramatically set into the huge overhanging face of the grotto. It is still possible to squeeze through the original path which the shepherds took on all fours, to view the ancient statues of S. Lucia and S. Michele.

S. Lucia is the patron saint of the blind and a small room off the side of the church is filled with reliquaries containing silver ex-votos donated by faithful worshipers who have regained their sight after praying to her.

A Circus Comes to Sassinoro

On the day of my visit to the sanctuary, I had an experience so glorious in its absurdity that it had to be documented and shared.

While admiring the inside of the church of S. Lucia in Sassinoro, my host Giovanna pointed out the last-minute preparations being made for a wedding that was to take place shortly: the bride and groom’s seats and pew had been padded with white satin drapery; the central aisle carpeted with a white runner and strewn carefully with orange rose petals.  Bouquets of yellow flowers decorated the pews on either side of the carpet, creating a strong visual perspective towards the magnificent, suspended cross with its incredible, rocky backdrop.

As we walked out into the dappled sunlight I began to say my goodbyes, but my eyes were drawn to a strange apparition on the far side of the courtyard, standing directly opposite a white marble statue of Padre Pio.  Like the glimmering image of St. Michael in the dark grotto of 1600, a young man stood, emanating a blinding light.  I had to blinked twice to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me.

He was olive-skinned and decked from head to toe in shades of cream and white.  A diamond-studded clasp closed the lapels of a jacket made out of what seemed to be upholstery fabric; a smaller pin glinted at his throat in place of a tie.  While the unhemmed pants billowed out over his cream-coloured boots, a jauntily-held white cane brought my gaze back to ruffled shirt-cuffs peaking out from the jacket sleeves.  The whole thing was topped off by a top hat studded with sequins.

Could this be St. Barnum or Bailey, I wondered, or was it a character out of a Savoyard production of Gilbert & Sullivan? The total effect was of a ring-leader at a circus and I watched, tranfixed, to see whether he would pull a rabbit out of his hat.

“Oh my God”, I gasped slowly, “It’s the groom!”

Two considertions broke into my mind.  What kind of person could have suggested this bizarre outfit and had the young man had to pay for it?

At that moment the bride’s entourage pulled up at the the gate below, cars piling up behind the her 10-meter limousine which huffed to a halt at the bottom of the stairs.  Out spilled a cresting wave of white tulle.

This gal must have been a long-standing member of the congregation of S. Lucia because the lenses of her glasses were thick as bottle-bottoms. Her father  - also dressed in white, but with an interesting shade of purple shirt and tie – helped her out of the car and proudly led her up the stairs.  Not to be outdone, her mother wore a red strapless gown while her aunt videoed the procession from behind in a tight-fitting black dress with a striking cleavage.  Someone at the top of the steps shouted down to the bride as she bravely navigated the stairs that she was lifting her dress too high for decency…

The riotous assembly regrouped in the sunlit churchyard, as the four-year-old bridesmaid augustly took her place behind the couple and holding the end of veil in her tiny hands.

Padre Pio, unperturbed by the garish show, calmly blessed everyone as they entered into the shadows of the church.