The Joust

I was rather tired yesterday after the late night of the matrimonio medievale the night before, however I dragged myself out of bed at 9:00 to ensure that I didn’t miss any potential excitement on this exciting weekend. On my first trip through the piazza I saw some printed programs that were given to those paying 8 euro for a seat on the bleachers. I was just contemplating asking a small child to duck under the metal bleachers to retrieve one when I spotted some sitting on a side table. The program actually a good sized colorful booklet with pictures of past celebrations and some historical information about the joust, and a bit was even in English. A nice keepsake for me to take home with me.

At 11:00 there was a practice joust to give the competitors an opportunity to warm up and familiarize themselves with the set up of the competition area. I noticed that many of the competitors wore a large brown leather collar to protect their shoulders from the weight of the cross bow. It surprised me to see that they do not actually support the entire cross bow, but the front part is set into a sort of stand and the back part with the trigger rests on the shoulder of the archer. A second individual carefully and precisely loaded one arrow into the bow. The target itself is colorful, made of wood, and divided into sections with a drawing in each. The real target is a white 3-dimensional square maybe five inches across placed in the center of the wooden target. This white square has been subdivided into five smaller squares delineated in black ink, one in the center and one toward each of the four corners. I watched several archers take shots and noticed that one young man was REALLY good. He placed three arrows within some portion of the small inked center square!

After the practice session there was a break until the real competition, so I found myself trotting outside of the city walls toward the porchetta man. Now, suspicious minds will think I was visiting the porchetta man to buy a luscious pork sandwich, my second in two days, but nothing could be further from the truth. When I visited the porchetta man last weekend I taught him the English word for sachetto, “bag”, and it was absolutely imperative that I check his progress to ensure he’d retained that vital tidbit of information, which he had. I gave him a big, “Bravo”, and next thing I know he’s handing me a panino wrapped in brown paper and I’m handing him 2 euro. Now that I had the darned thing in my hands, I certainly had to eat it! It was generously stacked with aromatic, garlicky pork slices and was even better than yesterday’s sandwich if that’s possible. I wonder if I can get a job as a porchetta taster? Of course that sort of job probably comes with some terrible title like “The Big Pig” or something equally hideous.

At the appointed hour the actual joust competition began. It was preceded by more than an hour’s worth of fanfare; drummers, trumpeters, the presentation of the neighborhoods and the wedding couple, dancers, and flag throwers. It was very similar to the wedding celebration the night before minus the marriage ceremony and flame thrower. I was standing in the third row and had a fairly clear view until two of the “official” event photographers appeared to stand in my clear space! I did take what pictures I could and even made a couple of video clips which I will try to post to my bog today. I did not stay for the entire competition as, after another 90 minutes of standing, my knees were killing me and my left foot was numb. I will visit Cortona’s website this morning to see if the results have been announced. I have a sinking feeling that Santa Maria did not win, but my fingers are still crossed!