On Easter morning, the magic of the "explosion of the cart" is renewed. The "Brindellone", the "fire" cart escorted by 150 armed men, musicians and flag-wavers of the Historical Procession of the Florentine Republic, moves from the Prato square, pulled by two pairs of white flower-bedecked oxen, and arrives in the Piazza del Duomo, where it is placed in the space between the Baptistery and the Cathedral. Then, at the singing of "Gloria in Excelsis Deo", the fuse of the dove is lit which, hissing, sets fire to the firecrackers and fireworks expertly arranged on the cart.
What's happening on April 20 - Sunday, April 20, Easter Day, at 7:30 the 'Carro del Fuoco', accompanied by the Historical Procession of the Florentine Republic, will leave from the depot in Via il Prato to reach Piazza Duomo with the following itinerary: via Il Prato, Borgo Ognissanti, Piazza Goldoni, Via della Vigna Nuova, Via Strozzi, Piazza della Repubblica, via Roma. At 9:30 the Historical Procession will arrive in Piazza Duomo and 15 minutes later the draw for the pairing of the games of the San Giovanni Tournament. The Scoppio del Carro will begin at 11. MORE INFO
The explosion of the cart is a ceremony that has a particular meaning, especially for the Florentines, because it calls into question historical and devotional reasons intimately connected to the identity of the city. Just think of the auspices drawn for centuries from the flight of the Dove that from the high altar of the Cathedral reaches the Cart causing it to explode; from the progress of that race, people have always fantasized about how the imminent harvest season would present itself in the countryside. Not to mention the legendary story of the Brindellone: the word "brindellone" belongs to Florentine slang and defines a tall, swaying person, perhaps a little unsteady and a little beggarly, who is however looked upon with a certain affection and substantial sympathy. It seems that the origin of the combination of this word and the cart dates back to the celebration celebrated by the Florentine Mint in honor of its protector, Saint John the Baptist. On June 24th, a hay cart left from the Mint tower and went around the city, pulling a man dressed in rags who obviously represented the holy hermit and who was called "brindellone", also because he tended to sway a lot, especially after having eaten and drunk abundantly during the banquet consumed in the square. Since then, the term remained in popular use to identify all the carts used in the city for public ceremonies.
This celebration dates back to the distant times of the first crusade and, in particular, to the return from Jerusalem of the Florentine captain Pazzino dei Pazzi who brought with him three flakes of stone from the Holy Sepulchre. The three stones were used to extract a spark of "new" fire distributed to Florentine families, after the blessing, to rekindle the domestic hearth. In this way, the custom of distributing the "holy fire" to the clergy and the people as a sign of Resurrection spread in Florence.
It was the Pazzi family in fact, with the construction of the monumental "Carro di Fuoco", who laid the foundations of today's ceremony which, in a symbolical manner, distributed the blessed fire to the entire city.
Starting from the seventeenth century, the ceremony took on its current characteristics, with four gracefully dressed oxen pulling the Brindellone from the Prato site to the Duomo.