Tuscan Tournaments. The Saracen Joust, the Crossbow Palio and the Game of the Bridge

The Casa Museo dell’Antiquariato Ivan Bruschi in Arezzo, part of the Intesa Sanpaolo portfolio, is hosting an exhibition until 12 January 2025 entitled “Tuscan Tournaments: The Saracen Joust, the Crossbow Palio and the Game of the Bridge” curated by Museo Stibbert Curator of Armouries Riccardo Franci. The exhibition is part of the Lands of the Uffizi project devised and produced by the Gallerie degli Uffizi and the Fondazione CR Firenze in the context of their respective Uffizi Diffusi and Piccoli Grandi Musei schemes.

Starting with the Saracen Joust, a popular event celebrated in the city of Arezzo, the exhibition sets out to document war games using prints and paintings of various periods from the Gallerie degli Uffizi and, above all, numerous examples of helmets, weapons and armour from the Museo Stibbert’s famous collection. These knightly contests, which became fashionable in the Middle Ages and survived well into the Renaissance, included the Crossbow Palio, where precision was the skill required of contestants, and the ancient Game of the Bridge, a trial of strength on foot to conquer the Old Bridge in Pisa.

Visitors are greeted by the most iconic exhibit in the show, a 16th century Buratto or Saracen quintain on loan from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello. Likely to have been made for celebrations held to mark the marriage of Francesco I and Bianca Cappello in 1579, alterations over the centuries have transformed it from a Saracen noble into the European warrior we see today. The exhibition logo is another prestigious work of art, Stefano Della Bella’s Knight in Armour made for a parade, on loan from the Gallerie degli Uffizi. The rich, sumptuous attire and caparison conjure up an image of the sheer splendour that attended these spectacular events designed to celebrate the great and good. In another painting, on loan from the Fondazione CR Firenze, Stefano Della Bella illustrated one such event, a nighttime parade in the Boboli Garden in 1637. Arms and armour have been lent by the Museo Stibbert in Florence, which owns one of the richest collections of material from the ancient Game of the Bridge in Pisa. The Stibbert has also loaned a set of superb 17th century crossbows richly inlaid with hunting scenes, manufactured by workshops in southern Germany. while the Ivan Bruschi Foundation’s collections have loaned an amusing letter of challenge from the “unvanquished, most glorious and ever victorious Buratto, King of the Indies”, printed to announce the edition of the Saracen Joust held in honour of Cardinal Corsini, Bishop of Arezzo, on 26 August 1674.