L’assedio di Firenze 17th February 1530 - 17th February 2016
17th February 1530. Florence is surrounded by the joined armies of Emperor Charles V and Pope Clement VII. A slow war, of the trenches, fought for more than four months between the fortifications of the besieged, on one side, and those provisional but always more powerful, the besiegers, on the other. It was Carnival, and an ancient Florentine tradition urged that in this period football should be played. Not the football of modern times, obviously, but what we now call Historical Football: an ancient game, that according to some had already been practiced by the Roman legionaries with the name of Harpastum, to keep fit during the long winter months.
