Once a year, in mid-August, the town of Montone turns back time 550 years and celebrates one of  great heroes the town has had, Carlo Fortebraccio.

For a whole week the three districts of Montone (Rioni) “Porta del monte”, “Porta di Verziere” and “Porta del Borgo” compete in various disciplines, which for us non-italians are quite unknown.

But let’s just get the story in place.

Carlo Fortebraccio vas born in Montone as the son of the famous Fortebraccio family, which in the 14th and 15th century governed much of Central Italy. The family struggled to form an independent state several centuries before, which did not succeed until in 1861 when it was lead by Garibaldi.

One of Carlo Fortebraccios big achievements was to lead the troops from Venice in their struggle against a Turkish invasion in 1473. Carlo and his men succeeded in chasing of the Turks and thanks for his efforts, he received a very special gift; “The Holy Thorn.” According to the legend, one of these thorns was a part of the crown of thorns that Jesus was forced to wear on his head when he was crucified.

In short Santa Spina is a celebration of this gift and of the achievements of Carlo Fortebraccio.

It requires long line of preparations for the inhabitants of the three districts to prepare for “Donazione della Santa Spina”.

The districts not only struggle against one another in a single discipline – but in several slightly … different disciplines.
The week begins with a kind of show off and exchanging of flags.
Next, each of the three districts performs small theatrical plays where they make fun of the other districts.
After this, an archery competition follows, where the men tour the city and shoot at more than 12 different goals.
Then there is a beauty contest where each district will present their proposal for the most beautiful wife of Carlo Fortebaccio.
And last but not least all the districts preform a theater piece, where they each do a self written play about the life of Fortebaccio.

Exactly how the points are distributed in the more creative features are not fully known – but when the winners are announced, the tension in the city is so significant that you can almost cut through the air with a knife. There is obviously a great deal of honor at stake.

Once the winner is found, the entire festival finishes of with a big parade, where the participants obviously are dressed in medieval costumes.

So next week we will follow the event closely. Follow our facebook and instagram where we will update daily with pictures and short texts and later on on the blog write a longer post about