Ascoli boasts an extraordinary continuity from
the Middle Ages to the present day in equestrian historical
games organized in occasion of the patron saint Emidio's feast
day, which have assumed therefore the meaning of calendarial
games or games of custom, (even if they could have been organized
extemporaneously, in other periods of the year, extraordinary
games, or "of apparatus" for particular events).
From the 1400s the equestrian games foresaw two distinct phases:
1) the show, procession of the noble cavalier and his court
("brigata") before the public, wearing embroidered
clothing (from the 1500s they bore the insignia and family coat
of arms) with well-defined colors; 2) Armeggio (armed excercises
employing the use of skill and techmique) the joust, effectuated
by the cavalier, (after having changed from the clothing of
the procession, wearing armor or the more practical doublet
or tunic), that consisted in the breaking of the lance against
the target.
Quintana, joust of the ring and palio (tournament) have all
in fact signalled in an uninterrupted manner the calendarial
life of the Piceno city from the Middle Ages to our present
day.
It is a fascinating event that has not disappointed, since the
days when Ascolans and foreigners, coming from the autonomous
communes for commerce, crowded the piazza dell'Arengo to admire
the cavaliers of the most noble houses as they challenged one
another, accompanied by their court. Today this same emotion
finds its echo in the live televised broadcast over national
TV, renewing the involvement and the passion of the modern-day
Quintanari, in a chronicle that is also an exciting equestrian
sport.
It is a charming event that has its roots in one of Italy's
most beautiful historical centers and it is in harmony, the
relative monuments that hail from the Roman era to the Medieval,
from the Renaissance to the Baroque.
The city of stone and the city of men take part in a dialogue
that has continued for centuries and has its counterpoint in
the game, antique by origin and yet ever renewed, as we hear
in the “grida” (shout) that still today is used
and comes from the announcement of the Statutes of 1377: “Et
poi le predicte cose, quilli che a cavallo ha jocato al hasto
overo armigiato, se vorrà, corra a la quintana, la quale
lu dicto camorlingho la faccia fare como le altre sopradicte
cose, la quale se ponga et ficcase in ne lu dicto arengho”.
(A cry to begin the game where the cavalier must ride his horse
to hit the target as indicated by the rules).
The counterpoint between stones and men of this extraordinary
city is newly proposed through one of the most antique and rare
testimonies of a tournament, a bas-relief from the 1200s that
depicts a astiludio (lance-bearer) at the meeting place between
two armored cavaliers who hold their lances, carved in the travertine
and currently located in a niche in corso Mazzini.
To shed even more light on the unfolding of the joust of the Quintana between
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and its ritual and symbolic relation with
the patron saint's feast, it is interesting to view the large fresco of Santa
Maria of Mevale, in the territory of Visso, dating from the end of the 15th Century
(1492): on several registers the images of a typical calendarial festivity run,
in which religious, civic and playful elements follow one another and intimately
correlate between each other: the solemn religious procession, the procession
with the local authorities at the head and, lastly, the Joust of the Quintana.
In the scene of the joust of Mevale, the cavalier depicted, with the noble "insignia" visible
on his horse, is directed with the lance towards the assault of a target that
is comprised of a pole on which a barrel is set.
This is evidence of the fact that, at least until the end of the 1400s, the Quintana
was in general constituted of a fixed target, that did not yet have the aspect
of a mannequin (symbolically depicting an enemy, then to become the enemy of
the Faith par excellence, that is the "Moor" or "Saracen");
successively the mannequin was able to rotate, holding a shield in one arm that
was the target and being able to strike the cavalier with a club or whip held
in the other arm.
The fresco of Mevale, work of a painter of the Umbra - Marches area, therefore
documents a phase of the historical evolution of the Quintana, whose roots arise
from the Roman world: this is in fact traceable to the antique exercise of Legionnaire's
training, who were trained on foot to hit precise points with the sword or javelin,
of a "palus" or pole that was six feet high and placed on the road
of the camps that were to be used for the purpose of training, (from this the "via
Quintana", that separated the fifth and sixth maniple, from which the name
of the current joust derives).
The feudal civilization then oriented the typological development of this game
towards the exercise of dexterity rather than of force, to undertake on horse
and no longer by foot, and they inserted it as a preparatory moment for the tournament.
Under the technical profile, in fact, both the Quintana and the Ring are two
jousts, (from Latin juxtare = near), that are individual combats on horseback,
aimed not at harming the adversary, but at making one's own abilities emerge
through the means of a gallop along a path ("lizza" or "carriera")
in which the horse, cavalier and lance are in tension towards an objective to
strike (the Quintana or the ring); in the cavalier's world, these were exercises
aimed at the preparation for true combat, constituted by the tournament itself.
The latter was a collective combat or one calling for the use of teams, ("melée"),
in origin a cruel demonstration of ability and force, which was assimilated completely
to then be capable of the undertaking of a real battle in open spaces and, only
successively, given rules and organized in the confines of a fence, usually circular. |
