John Mualim, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, takes us to Ivrea, Italy, where the legendary Battle of the Oranges unfolds. This chaotic festivity sees 8,000 participants hurling 900 tons of oranges at each other, embodying both joy and fierce competition. Mualim reveals how the pandemic's absence heightened the event's significance, as locals embraced catharsis and community spirit. With humor and history, he highlights the festival’s unique blend of celebration and connection amidst the absurdity.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Battle of the Oranges
Ivrea, Italy, prepares for the Battle of the Oranges, covering buildings and stocking oranges.
Thousands participate, throwing 900 tons of oranges while exhibiting euphoric abandon.
question_answer ANECDOTE
COVID Cancellation
The Battle of the Oranges was canceled due to COVID after starting three years prior.
Locals worried about pent-up energy without this cathartic event.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Aranceri Teams
Nine Aranceri teams, each with unique uniforms and names, prepare for battle.
They drink mulled wine and Bombardino, anticipating the fight against orange throwers in horse-drawn carts.
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One Sunday in February, in a northern Italian town called Ivrea, the facades of historic buildings were covered with plastic sheeting and nets. And in several different piazzas, hundreds of wooden crates had appeared. Inside them were oranges. Oranges, the fruit.
Over the next three days, 8,000 people in Ivrea would throw 900 tons of oranges at one another, one orange at a time, while tens of thousands of other people watched. They would throw the oranges very hard, very viciously, often while screaming profanities at their targets or yowling like Braveheart. But they would also keep smiling as they threw the oranges, embracing and joking and cheering one another on, exhibiting with their total beings a deranged-seeming but euphoric sense of abandon and belonging — a freedom that was easy to envy but difficult to understand.
The Battle of the Oranges is an annual tradition in Ivrea and part of a larger celebration described by its organizers as “the most ancient historical Carnival in Italy.” Several people in Ivrea told the writer Jon Mooallem that as three pandemic years had passed in which no oranges were thrown, they grew concerned that something bad would happen in the community — that without this catharsis, a certain pent-up, sinister energy would explode. And on that day in February, three years of constrained energy was due to explode all at once.
This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
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