Florentine football, also known as livery football or costume football, is a sports discipline echoing a game that in Latin was called harpastum. It consists of a team game that is carried out with a swollen balloon, and many are considered as the father of football, although at least in the fundamentals remember much more rugby.
There are many games that have been passed on to history, whether they are in the context they were played, whether they were happening during the course of their performance and reported back in time chronicles or just for the illustrious personalities that took part.
But “the game” par excellence, to which modern editions recall, is the one that was played on February 17, 1530 during the siege of the city. [29]
The Florentines, taking advantage of the sack of Rome carried out by the imperial army in 1527, had expelled the doctors and proclaimed the Republic again. Pope Clement VII (of the Medici family) had not liked that he had requested the intervention of Emperor Charles V, who besieged the city in the summer of 1529. The Florentines, now out of the shortage of food, decided Not to give up on the Carnival celebrations, and even to challenge the besiegers, they wanted to organize a football game in the Santa Croce square, which was clearly visible from the enemy troops camped on the surrounding hills. To ridicule the opponents more, a group of musicians played on the roof of the church so the imperialists had a clearer idea of what was happening. Suddenly a cannonball from the besieging batteries was fired at the square, but it flipped over the heads of the musicians and went over the church making no harm, welcomed by the crowd’s teasing and the flutes of Florentine trumpets.
There is no news of the winners of that match, probably because it was felt more like a collective effort against the enemy than a real tournament. Despite the courage shown, however, in the summer of the same year, the city was forced to surrender, and the Medici’s domination resumed.