Tuscany on Wheels

Tuscans have always loved a parade, and to the casual reader of Renaissance history, it seems they’re forever proceeding somewhere or another, even to their own detriment – during outbreaks of plague, holy companies would parade through an afflicted area, invoking divine mercy, while in effect aiding the spread of the pestilence.

They also had a great weakness for allegorical parade floats. During the centuries of endless war each Tuscan city rolled out its Carroccio, invented by a Milanese bishop in the 11th century. Drawn by six white oxen, this was a kind of holy ship of state in a hay cart; a mast held up a crucifix while a battle standard flew from the yard-arm, there was an altar for priests to say mass during the battle and a large bell with which to send signals over the din to the armies. The worst possible outcome of a battle was to lose one’s Carroccio to the enemy, as Fiesole did to Florence. One, in Siena, is still in operation, rumbling out twice a year for the Palio.