“È Hong Kong!”
– the Mayor of Urbino
So … in Part One of our sidekicks story we told you all about the international kite festival at Parco de Cesane above Urbino the Renaissance wonder, and promised you a bunch of interesting stories behind one of the most unique kite festivals in the world: Festa dell’Aquilone.
Well, buckle up, as here they come!
Just to refresh your memory, we were invited to be a part of the 69th (!!!) Festa dell’Aquilone, a kite festival in Urbino, Marche, Italy. We met a lot of old friends and made some new, we flew our kites on a hill facing Urbino ventoso, enjoyed supreme Italian food, had a lot of fun, and in Part One cut our story just at the moment the real Festa was about to start.
You know, Festa dell’Aquilone is actually not a kite festival – it’s a palio, an ancient ritualised-war-turned-cultural-festival that resembles other palios Italy is famous for, from Siena and its insane horse race to boat races in Venice, donkey races in Parma. knife throwing in Scarperia, tug-of-wars, wrestling, and all the other imaginable and unimaginable competitions.
Somehow the good people of Urbino chose kites to fight among themselves – or, to be precise, among the contradas.
As every medieval town, Urbino has its quarters, neighbourhoods, wards, parishes … called contradas. In times of war all the contradas came together to fight the impious invader. In times of peace … well, they fought each other; it was dangerous for a member of one contrada to find himself lost on the territory of another, especially after dark, and losing limbs and lives was common – at least before kites arrived in town.
These days Urbino is composed of ten contradas, each having their unique colours – Contrada di Monte (red), Contrada di San Polo (silver and black), di Duomo (brown and silver), di Mazzaferro (purple), di San Bernardino (red and gold), di Lavagine (green), di Hong Kong (gold – and yes, Hong Kong), di Valbona (blue), di Piantata (green and purple), and Contrada di Piansevero (orange).
The palio in Urbino – Festa dell’Aquilone – is therefore fought with kites. In an organized fashion for a whopping 69 years (which is a truly unbelievable anniversary for an annual kite flying event), but Urbino’s love affair with kites goes wayyy back. The famous poet of Urbino, Giovanni Pascoli, wrote poems about kites back in 1897:
… un’aria che proviene da un altro luogo,
da un altro mese e da un’altra vita: un’aria primaverile
che regga molte ali bianche sospese nel cielo…
sì, gli aquiloni! È questa una mattina
che non c’è scuola. Siamo usciti a schiera
tra le siepi di rovo e d’albaspina.
(The complete poem and its translation by the illustrious Seamus Heaney can be found below.)
It could be said (stretching all we know and most of history) that the kites came to Urbino not long after Marco Polo wrote about them and Konrad Kyeser constructed first crude European kites … maybe they flew above Urbino for the first time just as they lost their most prodigal son, Raphael.
You see, Raphael was born in Urbino.
And Urbino is not just a Renaissance town – Urbino Is Renaissance.
The most magnificent pile of bricks ever assembled. Those that mingled around the court of the Duke of Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro (called Lux Italiae!) were basically a who-is-who of the Renaissance … Paolo Uccello painted his strange masterpiece The Miracle of the Desecrated Host here (it is on display in the fantastic Galleria Nazionale delle Marche that resides in the former Palazzo Ducale of Urbino). Piero della Francesca wrote on the science of perspective, Francesco di Giorgio Martini wrote his Trattato di architettura (Treatise on Architecture), and Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, completed his poetical account of the chief artists of his time right here.
The list goes on and on and on; Bramante, van Wassenhove, Berruguete, the poet Malatesta, the mathematician Baldi, the philosopher Marsilio Ficino … and almost all the Italian artists of the time that are worth mentioning: Barocci, Baronzio, di Ciccarello, di Maestro Antonio, Pontelli, etc. etc. etc. It’s not surprising at all that the influential painting The Ideal City (La Città ideale) was created right here – in the ideal city of Urbino.
The court of the Dukes of Urbino was – and is! – the court: what we imagine today as a refined high court of a benevolent, enlightened king, of smart and generous princes, of beautiful and learned princesses, surrounded by artists and philosophers and well-mannered knights and sophisticated maidens, comes from a book Il Cortegiano – The Book of the Courtier – written by Baldassaro Castiglione in Urbino.
Urbino’s best years, from 1444 to 1523 (or, to be a bit more generous, the 200 years from the visit of Emperor Sigismund in 1424 to the annexation of the Duchy of Urbino by the Papal states in 1626), have practically no parallel in the world.
And neither does Festa dell’Aquilone.
Festa starts rather inconspicuosly in early August, when the contradas conclave themselves in their wards to make … hundreds of paper kites in their colours (and some larger and much more crazy ones).
Then on Saturday, the first day of the Festa, all the contradas gather at the Medieval fortress above Urbino, the Fortezza Albornóz, and they have a kite race: kite flyers clad in their respective colours let their kites fly all the way to the end of the line, and then reel them back down in a prescribed fashion. Kids have 50 meters of line, ladies 100 m, and men 150 m. The ones that manage to do it fastest are the champions and their names are carved in stone forever.
This is only the first part of the great competition for Il grande trofeo Città di Urbino …
The second part of the competition starts on Sunday afternoon, when the contradas show their giant 2D and 3D kites to the strict and impartial jury … The kites, as insane as they are (“That can’t fly. It’s impossible. Oh … Well, that one for sure won’t even leave the ground! …” murmured Grega when seeing the … whatever those flying contraptions were) are judged for la bellezza, their beauty, for the ability to fly, and for the magnificence in the air.
Some could, some couldn’t …
These kites are astonishing, and some of them really shouldn’t fly, and they do anyway … it’s an astonishing spectacle, with thousands of people screaming, the colours of the contradas covering the field, the kites rising on the waves of enthusiasm …
But the real magic of Festa dell’Aquilone is this:
Or, better, this:
There is nothing comparable to this in the world. Maybe, maybe the celebrations of Uttarayan in India – but they use smaller fighter kites, and the point is to cut the line, not to colour the sky.
Urbinati do want to colour their sky. And they do it spectacularly.
It is one of the most amazing views one can experience … hundreds and hundreds of kites, yellow, blue, purple, orange, green, black, white, brown, dancing in the sky, creating an immense kaleidoscope in the wind above Parco delle Cesane, the hill facing Urbino ventoso, with the pearl of the Renaissance as the perfect background.
It’s breathtaking.
That’s when you realise why, as an international kite flyer, you are merely a sidekick here.
And it makes you hungry.
One of the many meanings of the word Festa is … feast.
On a warm Sunday evening, when the kites are safely down and the flying part of Festa dell’Aquilone is over, the contradas put tables and benches on the Piazza Rinascimento – and prepare a veritable Italian feast.
Set in a Medieval – ok, Renaissance – environment by the Palazzo Ducale, the feast of the contradas is a sight to behold.
Members, dressed in their respective colours, sit at the long tables, separate but together, and … celebrate the successful conclusion of yet another Festa dell’Aquilone.
A jazz ensemble played Italian canzone standards from the 30’s and 40’s and 50’s, the lasagna was incredible, the wine thick and sweet. It was truly an honor to sit and eat and drink with the contradas – even as mere sidekicks!
And then the awarding of trofeos began … For the smallest (flyable!) kite. For the best young kiter, who let his kite up and reeled it back down the fastest. The best female kiter, the best male kiter. The most diligent contrada. The special award for the ladies of the contradas, who solicited enough donations for a brand new mammography machine! The best 2D kite (Piansevero won, but we still think Mazzafero’s rokkaku was the best). The best 3D kite – won by Luca’s contrada di Lavagine. Hurrah! The most beautiful kite – premio Raffaello – that was deservedly awarded to an amazing aerial sculpture created by master Maurizio Cenci …
Finally the Mayor of Urbino, signor Maurizio Gambini, came on stage with Il grande trofeo Città di Urbino.
He took the sealed envelope containing the name of the contrada that won this year’s Festa, opened it, and made a dramatic pause:
“…”
And then …
“È Hong Kong!”
All the yellow shirts erupted in joy, as winning the Festa is the greatest honour a contrada can achieve. And contrada di Hong Kong did it for the second time in a row (incidentally, we were there both times, so – you are welcome, yellows)! The wine flowed, the fireworks lit the sky, and the indomitable Bianca led the party deep into the night.
And thus endeth the 69th Festa dell’Aquilone Urbino.
And now, a moment for some unsolicited advice 🙂
Since kite flying came a long way since the days of Marco Polo and Konrad Kyeser, the good people of Urbino saw that kite festivals evolved into huge events with huge flying monsters, and decided to invite some of those “real” kite flyers to their kite flying hill. We were invited too, and we are immensely grateful for this experience.
In 2025 Urbino will celebrate the 70th (!) anniversary of their Festa dell’Aquilone, and they plan an even bigger event, with more kite flyers and more kites making a bigger show.
But … the last thing Urbino needs is just another kite festival 😉 …
So we must remain – sidekicks.
Sidekicks. Not a “contrada di turisti” (that was our idea, and we admit it was a bad idea), not a main event, not a loud and fanciful and almost vulgar exposition of whatever the Chinese can sew together, from spongebobs and supermarios to trilobites and mantas.
A kite festival can be – and usually is – a beautiful event, with handmade masterpieces flying, joined by a couple of strange monsters, a seemingly impossible geometry dancing in the sky, and delicate creatures enjoying the wind; created by amazing artists, kite makers, kite flyers and party animals from all around the world. A kite show like this can be nicely adjoined to what’s really important: the contradas, their kites, the celebrations, the sky full of colours, the Festa.
Because there is just one Festa dell’Aquilone.
Festa is so unique, fascinating, incredible – and fragile. The people of Urbino are already lamenting the kids who are so versatile with their smartphones, yet can’t hold the scissors properly; the skills, the enthusiasm is waning, the costs are rising, the meaning and the importance of the event slipping away. It is hard as it is, so you probably shouldn’t bury a beautiful tradition under a loud show.
Are we smug and very very smart? Yes. But we are also genuinely concerned: Festa is, to put it bluntly, not of Urbino, but a part of the heritage of the world, and it should be preserved in all of its glorious oddity.
As Gregor said: “I want to bring my grandkids to this crazy festival!” … 🙂
Well, that’s off our chests, so let’s conclude this report on a positive note, with a reminder to us all of a centuries-long love affair between Urbino and kites – let’s leave the last word to the foremost Urbinian poet, Giovanni Pascoli:
(translated by Seamus Heaney)
See you next year, Urbino! 🙂
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