Ona, Ona, Ona!
Ona, Ona, Ona,
O che bella Rificolona,
La mia
l'é coi fiocchi,
La tua l'é coi pidocchi!
(Ona, ona ona,
What a beautiful Rificolona,
Mine with
bows is tied,
In yours do lice reside!)
So sing Florentine children as they wander through the streets the first week of September, carrying papier-mâché lanterns tied to the ends of sticks, called rificolone. Nobody's quite sure what the festival's origins are; some suggest it commemorates the triumphant entry of Florentine troops into Siena on August 2 1555, when the soldiers tied lanterns onto the ends of their pikes.
More probably the Festa della Rificolona grew out of the great fall market held September 7 (the day before the Nativity of the Virgin) in Piazza Santissima Annunziata. It was perhaps the most important market-day of the year, because it allowed the farmers to gather cash for the coming winter: To arrive early those living in the outlying regions would shoulder their packs long before dawn and carry lanterns, made by suspending candles within tissue-paper wind-shades, to light their way. Entire families would come, dressed in their Sunday best, but they were ignorant county folk and their attempts at elegance only made the city people laugh (Florentines still call an overdressed, over made-up woman a rificolona). Children would blow whistles at them, and make their own lanterns with colored tissue paper to follow along, or shoot at the farmers' lanterns with blowguns, in an attempt to knock over the candles and set the tissue paper ablaze.
The farmers no longer need to walk through the night to sell their goods, but Florentine children still get out their lanterns in the beginning of September and there are parties in the squares, with street theater and much merrymaking. There is also, on September 6th and 7th, a huge fair in Piazza Santissima Annunziata - it was the first fair held by organic producers in Italy, and remains one of the most important, with wonderful foods and performers of all kinds. The Festa della Rificolona closes with a procession on the night of the 7th, from Piazza Santa Croce to Piazza Santissima Annunziata, which is led by the Cardinal - he addresses the crowd, then there is merrymaking far into the night.