Calcio storico Fiorentino ( Historical soccer )

In the historic Greece came commonly carried out ludiche recreations with the ball, organizing contests from the names of "Feninda", "Episciro", and, more known, than "Sferomachia" (that it drew the name just from the sphere in game), in which two groups of equal number of players, rury compete to take the ball, offered a more varied and competitive show that, al same time, comprised the exercize of the race, the jump and the fight.

From the Greeks, this ludo, passed to the Roman which, with the name of Harpastum (torn to force) played it on the sabbiosi lands (for which the name harpastum often he was aggettivato with pulveruleotum) practicing to precise rules to which the two squares, always of equal number of players, had to be adhered.

The sport is a cross between Greco-Roman wrestling, rugby and soccer. Goals are scored by pitching the round red and white leather ball over a four-foot high wooden wall that runs the full width at each end of the field. Quixotically, a tall narrow white tent with red trim and a small red flag on top is positioned in the center of each goal wall. In front, stands the captain of a team and a standard bearer with the team flag. When a team scores, the cannon is fired, the scoring team's standard-bearer runs the length of the field waving his flag with his team running behind, cheering. The other team's standard bearer slinks down the field and the teams change goals.
Although the Calcio Storico of today is based on a memorable game held in 1530, the sport actually may have begun as far back as the 1400s. The original games continued until 1739 in Piazza Santa Croce. After a couple centuries of Calcio Storico hiatus, the Fiorentini brought the sport back as an annual event in 1930.
According to ancient testimonies "the game of soccer" is been born "on the river of Arno" and after centuries it is only trasmigrate on that one of the Tamigi where, changed the name in Foot-Ball (game of the ball to foot) and affinaterules, have achieved that reputation, today, universal recognized. Fiorentino Soccer , said also "soccer in custom" or "soccer in livery", is a game that sinks its roots in remote times, the first Italian dictionary of 1612, of the Academics of the Bran, confirms the thesis supplying the following definition: "... the name of a game, just and ancient is soccer also of the city of Florence, like battles ordered, passed from Greek to Latin. Therefore ancient game "just c" of Florence the whose origins, remotest, go then but tried before from the Greeks and from the Latins.
owadays three matches are played, by teams drawn from Florence's four major neighborhoods, in Piazza Santa Croce, on 16th, 24th, 30th of June on the recurrence of the patron -saint. After the long parade headed by the nobles on horseback, starting in Santa Maria Novella and culminating in Piazza Santa Croce, the game begins to cries of Viva Firenze! It is an hour of continuous struggle, attacks, scuffles, blows and tangling of bodies dressed in fifteenth-century costumes. It is intended to echo the famous match of 1530, in the desire to revive and to record a memorable page of the city's glorious history.After a three year pause the Florentine “Calcio” came back last year with friendly match and what about this June 2010? If you come in that period of the year, stay at Hotel Mario's, we are in the city centre, just few metres far away from Piazza Santa Croce where Soccer is played. It will be a real Florentine experience.
www.hotelmarios.com